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PARIS 

As Seen and Described 
by Famous Writers 



Edited and Translated by 

ESTHER SINGLETON 

Author of "Turrets, Towers and Temples," 

" Great Pictures, " and *'A Guide to the 

Opera," and translator of " The Music 

Dramas of Richard Wagner. ' ' 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 

'i*"i**H**H"*l"*i"*I**t"*H" •*•*»• "I" •*■'!• •»■■}• •!■ •(••»"•!* ^''r "»"•}• •{•"«■ "i"*" "r'r •»■•!* "I" 




Dodd, Mead and Company 
1900 



atv 



•^ 



^ 






(i278 

Literary of Uuixp «_•■»• 

JUN 15 1900 
FIRST copy. 

2>mJ Copy Of livtrw) to 

ORDEfi DIVISION 

JUN 27 1900 



Copyright, 1900 

by 

DoDD, Mead & Company 



Braunworth, Munn & Barber 

Printers and Binders 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 



PREFACE 

IN the following pages I have endeavoured to apply the 
general plan of my former books on art and architec- 
ture. In this volume, however, it was not advisable, 
even if possible, to confine myself to the picturesque and 
artistic features of the subject. I have tried to produce a 
work that will fulfill the purposes of an artistic guide-book. 
I have selected most of the important buildings and monu- 
ments of Paris and have chosen the most interesting de- 
scriptions that I could find by various authors, English and 
French, who love and admire the objects of which they 
write. 

In making these selections I have tried to include as many 
varieties of treatment as possible, and, therefore, there will 
be found the views of the professional art-critic, the casual 
literary voyageur^ the native litterateur^ and the social mor- 
alist. The views of Theodore de Banville, Victor Hugo, 
Prosper Merimee, Louis Blanc, Louis Enault, Arsene Hous- 
saye, and Philip Gilbert Hamerton present us with fine 
contrasts and side-lights ; and by gathering these together, 
I hope to give a picture of Paris which will be, in a meas- 
ure, complete. 

I have not altogether neglected the past, and in one case 
have devoted an important extract entirely to ancient days ; 
but, as a rule, I have chosen articles in which the writer 

V 



vi PREFACE 

deals sympathetically with the reminiscences of the past in 
connection with the monument under notice. 

I have endeavoured to group the articles systematically 
so that the reader may not have to jump from one side of 
Paris to another; the monuments on the left and right 
hank are kept apart with exception of the Trocadero which 
at the present day naturally follows a description of the 
Champ de Mars. 

In addition to the buildings and streets, I have included 
a few extracts dealing with the social and picturesque side 
of Parisian life. Of this general matter The Street and 
The Cafe are examples, while The ^artier Latin and La 
Bourse combine pure description with psychologic treat- 
ment. 

With the limited space at my disposal in a volume of 
this nature, it is impossible for me to treat the city ex- 
haustively, and this is my excuse for the omissions which 
the reader may, perchance, find of a favourite haunt or 
edifice. 

I also hope that the maps, drawn especially for this book, 
will be interesting companions to the text, as in them little 
is indicated but the special features described in the ex- 
tracts. Space has also forced me to cut occasionally, but 
I have taken no liberties with the text. 

New Tork^ May^ igoo. E. S. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

LA CIT£ 3-100 

Old Paris . -3 

Fictor Hugo 

Saint-Denis and Sainte-Genevieve . . . . -23 
Grant Allen 

Old Paris . . .26 

Louis Blanc 

Along the Seine .....••■ 34 
Louis Enault 

Sainte-Chapelle . . . . . . • '59 

Philip Gilbert Hamerton 

Cathedral of Notre-Dame 65 

Fictor Hugo 

A Bird's Eye View of Paris ... . . • '74 
Fictor Hugo 

A Glance at Paris 97 

Honore de Balzac 



THE LEFT BANK 103-216 

Flowers in Paris . . . . • • • • 103 
Jlphonse Karr 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

Reverie . . . . . . . . . • i ' 3 

George Sand 

Le Jardin des Plantes . . . . . . .121 

Louis Enault 

The Catacombs . . . . . . . .123 

'Neil IVynn Williams 

Saint-fitienne du Mont . . . . . . .132 

S. Sophia Beak 

The Quartier Latin . . . . . • . - '37 

Theodore de Banville 

Hotel de Cluny . . . . . . . .148 

Prosper Merim'ee 

La Sorbonne . . . . . . . . • '55 

S. Sophia Beak 



Saint-Severin . 




S. Sophia Beale 


. 157 


The Pantheon 




Philip Gilbert Hamerton 


. 162 


The Luxembourg 


Louis Enault 


. 169 


Saint-Germain 


des Pres ..... 

S. Sophia Beale 


. . 176 



Saint-Sulpice . . . . . . . . .182 

S. Sophia Beale 

Les Invalides . . . . . . . . .187 

Philip Gilbert Hamerton 

Hotel des Invalides . . . . . . . .191 

l^. de Swarte 



CONTENTS ix 

The Institute ......... 195 

Ernest Renan 

Champ de Mars ........ 207 

G, Lenotre 

Sunrise and Sunset from the Trocadero . . . .212 
&mile Zola 



THE RIGHT BANK 217-397 



La Ville ......... 219 

Theodore de Banville 

Les Boulevards . . . . . . . .226 

Louis Enault 

Pere Lachaise ......... 239 

Richard Whiteing 

La Place Royale ........ 241 

Jules Claretie 

Hotel de Sens ........ 250 

J. J. a Hare 

Hotel de Ville 253 

Paul Strauss 

Hotel Barbette 258 

Edouard Fournier 

Musee Carna valet . . . . . . . .263 

idouard Fournier 

La Tour Saint-Jacques ....... 266 

S. Sophia Be ale 



X 


CONTENTS 




La Bourse 


Gabriel Mourey 


. 268 


Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois 


. 281 




S. Sophia Beale 




The Cafe 


Theodore de Banville 


. 289 


The Louvre . 


Charles Dickens, Jr. 


. 296 


Palace du Carrousel 


Marquis de Montereau 


• 300 


The Palais- Roy ale . 


H. Monin 


• 306 


La Madeleine 


Philip Gilbert Hamerton 


• 3H 


La Madeleine 


• ■•••• 


• 314 


William Makepeace Thackeray 




Boulevard des Italiens . • . 


• 315 




Honor'e de Balzac 




The Boulevards 


Richard Whiteing 


• 3J7 


The Opera House . 




■ 318 



Philip Gilbert Hamerton 

Conservatoire de Musique . . . . . -323 

Albert Lavignac 

Bibliothequc Nationale . . . . . . '334 

Charles Dickens, Jr. 

Bibliothequc Nationale . . . . . . -336 

William Makepeace Thackeray 



CONTENTS xi 

Les Tuileries 338 

Imbert de Saint- Amand 

Rue de Rivoli 347 

Max de Revel 

The Street 351 

Theodore de Banville 

Place de la Concorde . . . . * . -359 
Richard Whiteing 

Place de la Concorde . . . . , . .361 
Theophile Gautier 

The ]£lysee . 363 

Arsine Houssaye 

Arc de Triomphe and Champs-filysees . . . • 378 

Edouard Fournier 

The Bois de Boulogne ....... 385 

Arsene Houssaye 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Seine and Cite . . . . 


Frontispiece 




Maison Henri IV. . . . . 


Facing Page 


26 


lie de la Cite, (map) . . . . 


a 


(( 


34 


The Conciergerie and the Pont au Change, 


€t 


(( 


48 


The Institute and the Pont des Arts 


ft 


ft 


57 


Sainte-Chapelle . . . . . 


tc 


ft 


59 


Notre-Dame . . . . . 


ft 


ft 


65 


Flower Market . . . . . 


<( 


ft 


103 


The Gardens of the Tuileries. 


ft 


tf 


113 


From Bercy to Notre-Dame, (map) 


tt 


tt 


121 


Saint-£tienne du Mont . . . . 


tf 


tt 


132 


From Saint- !fitienne to I'lnstitut, (map) . 


ft 


tt 


137 


Musee de Cluny . . . . . 


ft 


ft 


148 


The Sorbonne .... 


tf 


tt 


155 


The Pantheon .... 


tt 


tt 


162 


The Luxembourg .... 


tt 


tf 


169 


Saint-Germain des Pres . 


ft 


ft 


176 


Saint-Sulpice .... 


tt 


tt 


182 


The Invalides .... 


tt 


tf 


187 


Hotel des Invalides 


tf 


ft 


191 


From I'lnstitut to Fortifications, (map) 


tt 


tf 


195 


The Trocadero .... 


ft 


tf 


212 


From Bercy to the Hotel de Ville, (map) 


ft 


ft 


219 


Porte Saint-Martin 


tt 


tf 


226 


Colonne de Juillet 


tt 


(( 


232 


Porte Saint-Denis .... 


tt 


ft 


235 


Pere Lachaise .... 


ft 


ft 


239 


From Hotel de Ville to Louvre, (map) 


ft 


ft 


241 


xiii 









ILLUSTRATIONS 



Hotel de Sens .... 




Facing P 


age 250 


Hotel de Villc .... 




" 


253 


Tour Saint-Jacques 




<< < 


266 


The Bourse .... 




<< < 


268 


Saint-Germain rAuxerrois 




(< < 


281 


The Louvre .... 




<( < 


* 296 


Arc du Carrousel .... 




<< I 


' 300 


Palais Royal . .^ . . 




<( ( 


306 


The Madeleine .... 




tt < 


311 


Boulevard des Italiens . 




(( ( 


315 


The Opera House 




(( I 


318 


Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois to Champs- 






Elysees, (map) 




€( < 


323 


The Gardens of the Tuileries 




<( < 


336 


Rue de Rivoli .... 




(( < 


348 


Colonne Vendome 




« ( 


349 


Saint-Eustache .... 




(( 4 


353 


Place de la Concorde . 




(( € 


359 


From Place de la Concorde to Bois 


de 






Boulogne, (map) . 




tt ' 


361 


Arc de Triomphe 




ft < 


378 


Bois de Boulogne .... 




<t t 


385 


Bois de Boulogne .... 




€€ f 


390 



La Cite 



OLD PARIS 

VICTOR HUGO 



^ ¥ "^HE history of Paris, if we clear it away as we 
I should clear away Herculaneum, forces us con- 

-*^ stantly to begin the work again. It has beds of 
alluvion, alveolas of clay, and spirals of labyrinth. To 
dissect this ruin to the bottom seems impossible. One cave 
cleaned out reveals another stopped up. Below the ground 
floor there is a crypt ; below the crypt, a cavern ; below the 
cavern, a sepulchre ; and below the sepulchre, a gulf. The 
gulf is the Celtic unknown. To ransack everything is 
difficult. Gilles Corrozet has tried it with legend, Malingre 
and Pierre Bonfons with tradition, Du Breul, Germain Brice, 
Sauval, Bequillet, and Piganiol de la Force with erudition, 
Hurtaut and Marigny with method, Jalloit with criticism, 
Felibien and Leboeuf with orthodoxy, Dulaure with philoso- 
phy : each of them has broken his tool there. 

Take the plans of Paris at its various ages. Superimpose 
them upon one another concentrically to Notre-Dame. 
Regard the Fifteenth Century in the plan of Saint-Victor, 
the Sixteenth in the plan of tapestry, the Seventeenth in 
the plan of Bullet, the Eighteenth in the plans of Gom- 
boust, Roussel, Denis Thierry, Lagrive, Bretez, and Verni- 
quet, the Nineteenth in the plan of to-day, and the magni- 
fying effect is terrible. 

3 



4 PARIS 

You think you see the approach of a star growing larger 
at the end of a telescope. 

He who looks into the depths of Paris gets the vertigo. 
Nothing is more fantastic, nothing is more tragic, nothing 
is more superb. For Caesar it was a vectigal city ; for 
Julian a country-house ; for Charlemagne a school, whither 
he called doctors from Germany and chanters from Italy, 
and which Pope Leo III. termed Soror bona {Sorbonne^ let it 
not displease Robert Sorbonne) ; for Hughes Capet, a 
family place; for Louis VI., a port with tolls; for Philippe 
Auguste, a fortress ; for Saint Louis, a chapel ; for Louis le 
Hutin, a gibbet; for Charles V., a library; for Louis XL, 
a printing-press; for Francois L, a cabaret; for Richelieu, 
an academy ; for Louis XIV., Paris is the place of beds-of- 
justice and chambres ardcnts ; and for Bonaparte, the great 
cross-roads of war. 1 he beginning of Paris is contiguous 
to the decline of Rome. The marble statue of a Latin 
lady who died at Lutetia, as Julia Alpinula died at 
Avenches, has slept for twenty centuries in the old soil of 
Paris; it was found whilst excavating the Rue Montholon. 
Paris is called "the City of Julius," by Boece, a man of 
consular rank who died of a cord tied around his head by 
the executioner till his eyes started out. Tiberius, so to 
speak, laid the first stone of Notre-Dame; it was he who 
found that place good for a temple and who there erected 
an altar to the god Cerennos and to the bull Esus. On 
the mount of Sainte-Genevieve, Mercury was worshipped; 
in the lie Louviers, Isis; in the Rue de la Barillerie, 



OLD PARIS 5 

Apollo ; and where the Tuileries are now, Caracalla. Car- 
acalla is that emperor who made a god of his brother, Geta, 
with blows of a poniard, saying : Divus sity dum non vivus. 
The water-sellers, who were called nautes^ preceded the 
Samaritaine by fifteen hundred years. There was an 
Etruscan pottery in the Rue Saint-Jean de Beauvais ; a 
gladiator arena in the Rue Fosses-Saint-Victor; at the 
Thermes, an aqueduct coming from Rongis via Arcueil ; 
and, at the Rue Saint-Jacques, a Roman road with branches 
to Ivry, Grenelle, Sevres and Mount Cetard. Egypt is not 
represented in Lutetia by Isis alone ; for tradition has it 
that there was found alive in a mass of Seine alluvion a 
crocodile, the mummy of which was still to be seen in the 
Sixteenth Century attached to the ceiling of the great hall 
of the Palais de Justice. 

Around Saint-Landry crossed the network of the Roman 
streets in which circulated the coins of Richiaire, king of 
the Suevi, stamped with the effigy of Honorius. The 
Quai des Morfondus covers the mud-bank on which the 
bare feet of Clotaire, King of France, left their impress, 
the king who dwelt in a log castle cloisonee with ox-hides, 
some of which, freshly-flayed, imitated the purple. Where 
is now the Rue Guenegaud, Herchinaldus, Mayor of 
Normandy, and Flaochat, Mayor of Burgundy conferred 
with Sigebert II., who wore affixed to his cap, like a savage 
king of to-day, two pieces of money : a quinarius of the 
Vandals and a golden triens of the Visigoths. At the head 
of Saint-Jean-le-Rond a slab was set displaying the capitu- 



6 PARIS 

lary of the Sixteenth Century engraved in Latin : " Let the 
suspected thief be seized : if he is a noble, let him be 
judged ; if he is a villain, let him be hanged on the spot. 
Loco pendatur" Where the Archbishop's residence is, 
there was a stone set up in memory of the putting to death 
of the nine thousand Bulgarian families who had fled to 
Bavaria in 631. On a heath, where the Bourse now 
stands, the heralds proclaimed the war between Louis le 
Gros and the house of Coucy. Louis le Gros, who gave 
an asylum in France to five banished Popes, Urbain IL, Pas- 
chal IL, Gelasius IL, Calixtus IL, and Innocent IL, had 
just issued victorious from his war against the Baron de 
Montmorency and the Baron de Puiset. In a Roman 
Crypt, that existed almost on the spot where was built the 
hall called Rue de Paris in the Palais de Justice, the first 
organ known in Europe was brought from Compiegne j it 
was a gift from Constantine Copronymus to Pepin le Bref 
and its noise made a woman die of shock. The caborsins^ 
to-day we should say the foundation-scholars, were beaten 
with rods before the column of the hall Septemsunt^ dedi- 
cated to Pythagoras the musician ; this name Septem was 
justified by six other names written on the reverse of the 
column : Ptolemy the astronomer, Plato the theologian, 
Euclid the geometrician, Archimedes the mechanician, 
Aristotle the philosopher, and Nicomachus the arithmeti- 
cian. It was in Paris that civilization germinated ; that 
Oribasus of Pergamos, questor of Constantinople, abridged 
and explained Gallien ; that were founded the mercantile 



OLD PARIS 7 

hanse, imitated in Germany, and the legal fraternity im- 
itated in England; that Louis IX. built churches, Saint 
Catherine among others, " at the prayer of the sergeants at 
arms " ; that the assembly of barons and bishops became a 
parliament; and that Charlemagne in his capitulary con- 
cerning Saint-Germain-de-Pres forbade ecclesiastics to kill 
men. Here came Celestin II. to the school under Pierre 
Lombard. The student Dante Alighieri lodged in the Rue 
du Fouarre. Abelard met Heloise in the Rue Basse-des- 
Ursins. The Emperors of Germany hated Paris like a 
" brand of evil fire." Otho II., that butcher who was 
called "the Pale Death of the Saracens," Pallida mors 
Sarracenorum^ struck a blow with his lance upon one of the 
gates of the city, the mark of which it long retained. 
Another enemy, the King of England, encamped at 
Vaugirard. 

Between the war and the famine Paris increased. 
Charles le Chauve gave to the Normans who had burned the 
churches of Sainte-Genevieve and Saint-Pierre, as well as 
half the Cite, seven thousand silver livres to ransom the 
remainder. Paris has been the Raft of the Medusa ; the 
agonies of famine have been there ; in 975, lots were 
drawn as to who should be eaten. The abbe of Saint- 
Germain-de-Pres and the abbe of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 
fortified in their monasteries, attacked each other and fought 
in the streets ; for the right of private war existed until 1257. 
In 1255 Saint-Louis established the Inquisition in France; 
a venomous acclimatization ! From that moment there 



8 PARIS 

were innumerable persecutions in Paris: in 1255 against 
the bankers; in 131 1, against the b'eguarch^ the heretics, 
and the Lombards; in 1323, against the Franciscans and 
the magicians; in 1372, against the turliip'nis ; then against 
the swearers, paterhis and the reformers. Revolts were the 
reply. The scholars, the Jacques^ the jnalUotins^ the 
cabochiens^ the tuchins sketched this resistance which later 
the priests are to copy in the Ligue and the princes in the 
Fronde; in 1588, the first barricade will come, and the 
people to whom Philippe Auguste gave that stone tiling 
called the paving of Paris will learn the way to make use 
of it. With the revolts, executions are multiplied ; and, 
all honour to letters and to science, through this pell-mell of 
charnel-houses and gibbets, germinate and grow the col- 
leges of Lisieux, Bourgogne, les £cossais, Marmoutier, 
Chancer, Hubant, I'Ave-Maria, Mignon, Autun, Cambrai, 
Maitre Clement, Cardinal Lemoine, de Thou, Reims, 
Coquerel, de la Marche, Seez, le Mans, Boissy, la Merci, 
Clermont, les Grassins (whence will come Boilieu) Louis- 
le-Grand (whence will come Voltaire) ; and, side by side 
with colleges, the hospitals, terrible asylums, species of 
circuses where pestilences devour mankind. The variety of 
these pestilences, born of the variety of filth, is incon- 
ceivable ; there is the "sacred fire," there is the Floren- 
tine, there is the burning sickness ; there is the sickness of 
hell, there is the black fever; they produce idiocy; they 
even attack kings, and Charles VI. falls into the " chaude 
maladie" The taxes were so excessive that people tried to 



OLD PARIS 9 

become leprous to avoid paying them. Thence arises the 
synonym between the leper and the miser. Go into that 
record, descend into it and wander there. Everything in 
this city, so long in the pangs of revolution, has a meaning. 
The first house we come across has long known it. The 
sub-soil of Paris is a receiver of stolen goods ; it conceals 
history. If the streams of the streets were to come to 
confession, what things they could tell ! Have the heap of 
the filth of the centuries turned over by the rag-picker 
Chodruc-Duclos at the corner of the bounds of Ravaillac ! 
However troubled and thick history may be, it has trans- 
parencies ; examine them ; all that is dead in fact is alive 
as enlightenment. And above all do not pick and choose. 
Contemplate at random. 

Beneath the present Paris, the ancient Paris is distinct, 
like the old text in the interlineations of the new. Take 
away the statue of Henri IV. from the point of the Cite 
and you will see the pyre of Jacques Molay. It was on the 
square of the Chateau des Porcherons, before the Hotel 
Coq, in presence of the oriflamme displayed by the Comte 
de Vexin, owned by the Abbaye de Saint-Denis, that, on 
the proclamation of the six bishop-peers of France, Jean 
L, immediately after his consecration, which took place on 
the 24th of September, and the execution of the Comte de 
Guines, which took place on the 24th of November, was 
surnamed the Good. At the Hotel Saint-Pol, Isabella of 
Bavaria ate aigrun, that is to say Corbeil onions, Etampes 
" eschaloignes" and Grandeluz cloves of garlic, while 



lo PARIS 

laughing with a certain English prince as to the paternity 
of her husband Charles VI. toward her son Charles VII. 
It was the Pont-au-Change upon which was cried, August 
23d, 1553, the edict of the parliament. It was in the low 
hall of the Chatelet that under Francois I., father of let- 
ters, relapsed printers received the question of sixteen 
nicks. It was the Rue-du-Pas-de-la-Mule through which 
passed every day in 1560 the first president of the parlia- 
ment of Paris, Gilles le Maistre, mounted on a mule and 
followed by his wife in a charrette, and her servant on a 
she ass, going to see the people whom he had judged in the 
morning hanged in the evening. In the Tour de Mont- 
gomery, not far from the lodge of the keeper of the Palais, 
who was entitled to two fowls a day and the cinders and 
brands from the king's fireplace, was dug below the level 
of the Seine that cell named la Souriciere because of the 
mice which devoured the still-living prisoners there. At 
the crossing of the streets called la Trahoir on account of 
Brunehaut, who, it is said, was dragged at the tail of a 
horse at the age of twenty-four, and later I'Arbre-Sec on 
account of a dry tree, that is to say a gibbet, which stood 
there permanently, at the foot of the gallows, at a few 
paces from a scavenger's where were held the gayest noble 
orgies of the Sixteenth Century, flower-girls offered flowers 
and fruits to the passers-by with the song : 

" Fleur d' aiglaniier, 
Verjux a faire ail lie. ''^ 

At the Port Saint-Honore, the Cardinal de Bourbon, who 



OLD PARIS 11 

was an early type of Charles X., and the Duke of Guise, 
went out walking for the first time with guards, the news 
of which suddenly whitened half of the moustache of the 
King of Navarre. It was on going out to pay his devo- 
tions at Sainte-JVIarie-l'-Egyptienne that Henri III. drew 
from beneath his little dogs, that hung from his neck in a 
round basket, the edict that he handed to the chancellor 
Chiverny, and which took back from the citizens of Paris 
the nobility which had been granted to them by Charles V. 
It was in front of the fountain of Saint-Paul in the Rue 
Saint- Antoine that, at the obsequies of Cardinal de Birague, 
the court of aides and the chamber of accounts came to 
blows on the question of precedence. In this place was 
the great hall in which sat " la magistrature fran^aise" with 
long beards in the Sixteenth Century and big wigs in the 
Seventeenth ; and here is the wicket of the Louvre whence 
issued very early in the morning the black or gray muske- 
teers who, from time to time, came to bring these beards 
and these wigs to reason. We know that they were some- 
times refractory. For example, in 1644, the opposition of 
the parliament went so far as to consent to the increase of 
the loan, called forced, for the whole of France, with the 
exception of the parliament. A certain acceptance of 
thieves and night-birds has long been characteristic of the 
streets of Paris ; before Louis XI. there were no police ; 
before La Reynie, no lanterns. In 1667, the Cour des Mir- 
acles, still possessing all its Gothic trifles, formed a vis-a-vis 
to the carrousels of Louis XIV. This old Parisian ground 



12 PARIS 

is a fruitful quarry of events, manners, laws, and customs ; 
everything in it is ore for the philosopher. Come, look ! 
This emplacement was the Marche aux Pourceaux ; there, 
in an iron vat, in the name of those princes who among 
other skillful monetary ways invented the tournois rioir^ and 
who in the Fourteenth Century, in the space of fifty years, 
seven times in succession, found the means of applying the 
clippings of a bankrupt to the public fortune (a royal phe- 
nomenon repeated under Louis XV.) in the name of Philippe 
I., who declared the various kinds of base coin money, in 
the name of Louis VL and Louis VIL, who compelled all 
the French with the exception of the citizens of Com- 
piegne to take sous for livres, in the name of Philippe le 
Bel, who fabricated those angevins of doubtful gold called 
" sheep with the long wool " and " sheep with the short 
wool," in the name of Philippe de Valois, who altered the 
Georges florin, in the name of King Jean, who raised cir- 
cles of leather, having a silver nail in the centre, to the 
dignity of gold ducats, in the name of Charles VIL, gilder 
and silverer of Hards, which he termed saiuts d'or and 
blancs d^argent, in the name of Louis XII., who decreed 
that the hardls of one denier were worth three, in the name 
of Henri II., who made golden henris of lead, during five 
centuries, false coinicrs have been boiled alive. 

In the centre of what was then called the Ville as dis- 
tinct from the Cite, is the Maubuee (bad smoke), the place 
where were burned in the tar and green faggots so many 
Jews to punish "their anthropomancy " and, says the 



OLD PARIS 13 

Councillor De I'Ancre, for " the admirable cruelty which 
they have always employed towards Christians, their form 
of life, their synagogue displeasing to God, their unclean- 
ness and stench." A little to one side, the antiquarian 
comes across a co]»ner of the Rue du Gros-Chenet, where 
sorcerers were burned before a gilded and painted bas-relief, 
attributed to Nicholas Flamel, and representing the flaming 
meteor, as big as a mill-stone, which fell upon iEgos-Po- 
tamos, the night on which Socrates was born, and which 
Diogenes the Apollonian, the lawgiver of Asia Minor, 
calls a star of stone. Then that cross-roads, Baudet, 
where to the sound of the horn and trumpet, as Gaguin 
relates, the extermination of the lepers was cried and 
ordered for the whole kingdom, on account of the mixture 
of grass, blood, and "human water," rolled up in a rag 
and tied to a stone, with which they poisoned the cisterns 
and rivers. Other cries occurred. Thus, before the 
Grand-Chatelet, the six heralds-at-arms of France, clothed 
in white velvet under their dalmatics decorated with Fleur- 
de-lis, and Caduceus in hand, came, after plagues, wars, 
and famines, to reassure the people and to announce that 
the king condescended to continue to receive the taxes. 
At the northeast extremity of this place, the Place Royale 
of the monarchy, Place des Vosges of the Republic, was 
the royal close of the Tournelles in which Philippe de Com- 
mines shared the bed of Louis XL, which somewhat dis- 
turbs his severe profile as a historian; we can scarcely 
imagine Tacitus sleeping with Tiberius. Philippe de Com- 



14 PARIS 

mines, who was s'en'echal of Poitiers, was also lord of 
Chaillot and possessed all the Cerisaie up to the ditch of 
the Paris sewer, seven Jiefs arrier'es held from the Tour 
Carree, then justice " moyenne et basse " with mayoralty and 
sergeantry. Happily all this does not prevent his being 
one of the ancestors of the French language. 

In the presence of this history of Paris, it is necessary to 
cry every moment, as did John Howard before other mis- 
eries : " It is here that the small facts are great. Some- 
times this history offers a double meaning, sometimes a 
triple one, sometimes none at all. It is then that it dis- 
turbs the mind. It seems as if it becomes ironical. It 
sets in relief sometimes a crime, sometimes a folly ; at 
times we do not know what is neither a folly nor a crime 
and yet forms part of the night. Amid these enigmas, we 
fancy behind us, in an aside, the low laughter of the 
Sphynx. Everywhere we find contrasts or parallels that 
resemble design in the chance. At No. 14 Rue de Bethisy, 
Coligny died and Sophie Arnould was born, and here are 
brusquely brought together the two characteristic aspects 
of the past, sanguinary fanaticism and cynical joviality. 
Les Halles, which saw the birth of the theatre (under 
Louis XI.) saw the birth of Moliere. The year in which 
Turenne died, Madame de Maintenon bloomed, a strange 
substitution; it is Paris that gave to Versailles Madame 
Scarron, queen of France, gentle to the verge of treason, 
pious to the verge of ferocity, chaste to the point of calcu- 
lation, and virtuous to the verge of vice. In the Rue des 



OLD PARIS 15 

MaraiSj Racine wrote Bajazet and Britannicus, in a cham- 
ber to which, fifty years later, the Duchess de Bouillon, 
poisoning Adrienne Lecouvreur, came in her turn to make 
a tragedy. At No. 23 Rue du Petit-Lion, in an elegant 
hotel of the Renaissance of which a skirt of wall remains, 
just beside that big tower of Saint-Gilles or Jean Sans- 
Peur, the comedies of Marivaux were played. Quite close 
to one another, opened two tragic windows : from one of 
them Charles IX. fired on the Parisians, from the other 
money was given to the people to induce them not to fol- 
low the interment of Moliere. What did the people want 
with dead Moliere ? To honour him ! No, to insult 
him. Some money was distributed to this mob and the 
hands that had come full of mud went away paid. O 
sombre ransom of an illustrious coffin ! It is in our own 
day that the turret has been demolished at the window of 
which the Dauphin Charles, trembling before irritated 
Paris, put on his head the scarlet cap of £tienne Marcel, 
three hundred and thirty years before Louis XVI. put on 
the red cap. The arcade Saint-Jean saw a little "dix 
aout" on August the loth, 1652, which was a slight 
sketch of the stage-setting of the great one ; there was the 
ringing of the great bell of Notre-Dame and musketry ; 
this was called the emeute des tetes de papier. It was again 
in August, the canicule is anarchical, it was August the 
23d, 1658, that on the Quai de la Vallee, formerly called 
the Val-Misere, the battle between the Augustine monks 
and the police-officers of the parliament took place ; the 



i6 PARIS 

clergy gladly met the decrees of the magistracy with volleys 
of musketry ; they called justice encroachment j between 
the convent and the arches there was a great exchange of 
shots which made La Fontaine come running, crying on 
the Pont-Neuf : " I am going to see Augustines killed ! " 
Not far from the Fortet college, where the Sixteen sat, is 
the cloister of the Cordeliers whence Marat rose into 
notice. The Place Vendome served Law, before serving 
Napoleon. At the Hotel Vendome, there was a little 
white marble chimney-piece celebrated for the quantity of 
petitions by Huguenot galley-slaves which were thrown 
into the fire by Campistron, who was Secretary-General of 
the galleys, at the same time being knight of Saint-Jacques 
and commander of Ximines in Spain, and Marquis de 
Penange in Italy, dignities that were entirely due to the 
poet who had moved the court and the city to pity over 
Tiridate offering resistance to the marriage between £rinice 
with Abradate. From the lugubrious Quai de la Ferraille, 
which has seen so many judicial atrocities, and which was 
also the Quai des Raccoleurs, issued all those joyous mili- 
tar)' and popular types, Laramee, Laviolette, Vadeboncoeur, 
and that Fanfan la Tulipe, placed in our day on the stage 
with such charm and splendour by Paul Meurice. In a 
garret of the Louvre, journalism was born of Theophraste 
Renaudot ; this time it was the mouse that gave birth to the 
mountain. In another compartment of this same Louvre, 
the Academic Fran^aise prospered : it has never had a 
forty-first chair but once, for Pelisson, and has never worn 



OLD PARIS 17 

mourning but once, for Voiture. A slab of marble with 
letters of gold, set in one of the corners of the Rue du 
Marche des Innocents, has long directed the attention of 
the Parisians to those three glories of the year 1685 : the 
embassy from Siam, the Doge of Genoa at Versailles, and 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It was against the 
wall of the edifice called Val-de-Grace that the Host was 
thrown, on account of which three men were burned alive. 
Date, 1685. Six years later Voltaire was to be born. It 
was quite time. 

Forty years ago, in the sacristy of Saint-Germain- 1 ' 
Auxerrois, was still shown the crimson chair, bearing 
the date 1722, in which was enthroned the Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of Cambrai on the day on which the Sieur Clignet, 
bailifF of the Abbaye de Saint-Remy de Reims, and the 
Sieurs de Romaine, de Saint-Catherine and Godot, Cheva- 
liers de la Sainte-Ampoule, came to take " the orders of 
His Eminence on the matter of the consecration of His 
Majesty." The eminence was Dubois, the Majesty was 
Louis XV. The storeroom preserved another armchair, 
that of the Regent d'Orleans, It was in this armchair that 
the Regent d'Orleans was sitting on the day when he spoke 
to the Comte de Charolais. M. de Charolais was returning 
from the chase, during which he had killed several pheas- 
ants in the woods and a notary in a village. The Regent 
said to him — " Go away, you are a prince and I will neither 
have the Comte de Charolais decapitated for having killed 
a passer-by, nor a passer-by for killing the Comte de Char- 



i8 PARIS 

olais." In the Rue du Battoir, Marshal Saxe kept his 
seraglio, which he took with him to war, which brought in 
the suite of the army three full coaches, that the Uhlans 
called " The Marshal's Women-wagons." What strange 
events, sometimes accumulated with that incoherence of 
reality from whence you are free to draw reflections ! In 
the same week, a woman, Madame de Chaumont, in the 
Mississippi stock-jobbing, gains a hundred and twenty-seven 
millions ; the forty chairs of the Academie Fran^aise are 
sent to Cambrai to seat the congress that ceded Gibraltar to 
England ; and the great gate of the Bastille opens at mid- 
night to give a view in the first courtyard of the execution 
by torch-light of an unknown, whose name and crime has 
never been known by anybody. Books were treated in two 
ways : the parliament burned them, the divinity chapter tore 
them up. They were burned upon the great staircase of 
the Palais : they were torn up In the Rue Chanoinesse. It 
is said that it was in this street amongst a waste heap of 
condemned books, that Pliny's epistles, afterwards printed 
by Aldus Manutius, were discovered by the monk Joconde, 
the builder of stone bridges that Sannazar called pontifex. 
As for the great steps of the Palais, in default of writers 
" who smelt the burning," they saw the writings burned. 
At the foot of this staircase Boindin said to Lamettrie : 
" They persecute you because you are an atheistic Jansenist ; 
they leave me in peace because I have the good sense to be 
an atheistic Molinist." There were the sentences of the Sor- 
bonne in addition for the books. La Sorbonne, a calotte 



OLD PARIS 19 

rather than a dome, dominated that chaos of colleges that 
composed the University and that the first Balzac, in his 
quarrel with Pere Golu, called the Latin country^ the name 
that has clung to it. La Sorbonne had moral jurisdiction 
over scholasticism. La Sorbonne forced John XXII. to re- 
tract his theory of beatific vision; La Sorbonne declared 
quinquina " villainous bark," upon which the parliament 
issued a decree forbidding quinquina to heal ; La Sorbonne 
decided adversely against Pope Sixtus IV. with regard to 
Antoine Campani, that bishop " to whom a peasant gave 
birth under a laurel-tree," and to whom Germany was so 
greatly displeasing, says his biographer, that on his return 
to Italy, finding himself on the top of the Alps, this ven- 
erable prelate said to Germany : 

'' Aspice nudatas^ harhara terra^ nates. ^^ 
The house No. 20, at Bercy, belonged to the Prevot 
de Beaumont, who was shut up alive in one of the stone 
tombs of the Tour Bertaudiere for having denounced the 
Pacte de Famine. In the immediate neighbourhood, 
another very mysterious house was called the Cour des 
Crimes. Nobody knows what it was. Before the door of the 
Provost's house of Paris, where sculptured and painted car- 
touches represented iEneas Scipio, Charlemagne, Esplandian 
and Bayard, called " flowers of chivalry and loyalty," on 
August the 30th, 1766, an usher with a staff cried the edict 
ordering gentlemen henceforth to wear at their side swords 
of twenty-three inches in length at the utmost " with carp- 
tongue points." Swords de guet-apens abounded in Paris j 



20 PARIS 

hence the edict. Other repressions were necessary : 
In 1750, when the furnishing of the chamber for the 
Dauphin at the Bellevue pavilion had just cost eighteen 
hundred thousand francs, in a spirit of economy the ration 
of bread for the prisoners was reduced, which famished 
them and drove them to revolt. The authorities fired into 
the throng through the prison gratings and killed several : 
among others, at Fort-l' Eveque, two women. At the 
Academie Fran^aise, there was a frightful, inquisitive indi- 
vidual, la Condamine ; he rhymed to Chloris like Gentil- 
Bernard, and explored the ocean like Vasco de Gama. Be- 
tween a quatrain and a tempest he went upon the scaffolds 
to get a near view of the executions. On one occasion he 
was present at a quartering upon the very stage of torment. 
The patient, haggard and bound in iron, looked at him. 
"The gentleman is an amateur," said the executioner. 
Such were the manners. This took place at the Place de 
Greve, the day when Louis XV. assassinated Damiens there. 
Is it necessary to continue ? If it were allowed to quote 
oneself, the writer of these lines would say here : " 'J^en 
passe et des meilleurs." Add to this dolorous mass the ad- 
ditional burden of Versailles, that terrible court ; extortion, 
the expedient of the princes of the Eighteenth Century, re- 
placed by stock-jobbing, the expedient of the princes of the 
Nineteenth; and that misshapen Conti, crushing with fillips 
the face of a young girl guilty of being pretty ; that Chevalier 
de Rohan, cudgelling Voltaire. What a precipice we are 
passing ! Lugubrious descent ! Dante would hesitate here. 



OLD PARIS 21 

This is the true catacomb of Paris. History has no blacker 
sap. No labyrinth equals in horror this cave of ancient deeds 
in which so many lively presumptions have their roots. This 
past hou^ever exists no longer, but its corpse does j w^hoever 
delves in old Paris comes across it. The word corpse ex- 
presses too little. The plural would be necessary here. 
The dead errors and miseries are an ant-hill of bones. 
They fill this underground that is called the annals of Paris. 
All the superstitions are here, all the fanaticisms, all the 
religious fables, all the legal fictions, all the ancient things 
called sacred, rules, codes, customs, dogmas ; and, out of 
sight in these shades, we can distinguish the sinister laughter 
of all these death's-heads. Alas ! the unfortunate men who 
pile up exactions and iniquities forget or are ignorant that 
there is an accounting. Those tyrannies, those lettres de 
cachet^ those orders, that Vincennes, that donjon of the 
Temple, where Jacques Molay summoned the King of 
France to appear before God, that Montfaucon where En- 
guerrand de Marigny who built it was hanged, that Bastille 
where Hugues Aubriot who erected it was confined, those 
cells in imitation of wells and calottes in imitation of the 
leads of Venice, those promiscuous towers, some for prayer 
others for prison, that scattering of knells and tocsins made 
for all those bells during twelve hundred years, those gib- 
bets, those strappadoes, those delights, that Diana in com- 
plete nudity at the Louvre, those torture-chambers, those 
harangues of kneeling magistrates, those idolatries of eti- 
quette, connexes to the refinements of executions, those 



22 PARIS 

doctrines that everything belongs to the king, those follies, 
those shames, those basenesses, those mutilations of every 
virility, those confiscations, those persecutions, and those 
crimes silently accumulated from century to century till at 
last there came a day when all this gloom reached a total, — 
1789. 



SAINT-DENIS AND SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 

GRANT ALLEN 

IT is not too much to say that, to the mediaeval Parisian, 
Paris appeared far less as the home of the kings or 
the capital of the kingdom than as the shrine of Saint- 
Denis and the city of Sainte-Genevieve. 

Universal tradition relates that St. Denis was the first 
preacher of Christianity in Paris. He is said to have suf- 
fered martyrdom there in the year 270. As the apostle 
and evangelist of the town, he was deeply venerated from 
the earliest times ; but later legend immensely increased his 
vogue and his sanctity. On the one hand, he was identi- 
fied with Dionysius the Areopagite ; on the other hand, he 
was said to have walked after his decapitation, bearing his 
head in his hand, from his place of martyrdom on the hill 
of Montmartre (Mons Martyrum), near the site from which 
the brand-new church of the Sacre Coeur now overlooks 
the vastly greater modern city, to a spot two miles away, 
where a pious lady buried him. On this spot, a chapel is 
said to have been erected as early as a. d. 275, within five 
years of his martyrdom ; later, Sainte-Genevieve, assisted 
by the people of Paris, raised a church over his remains on 
the same site. In the reign of King Dagobert, the sacred 
body was removed to the Abbey of St. Denis, which be- 
came the last resting-place of the kings of France. It is 

23 



24 PARIS 

probable that the legend of the saint having carried his head 
from Montmartre arose from a misunderstanding of images 
of the decapitated bishop, bearing his severed head in his 
hands as a symbol of the mode of his martyrdom; but the 
tale was universally accepted as true in mediaeval days, and 
is still so accepted by devout Parisians. Images of St. 
Denis, in episcopal robes, carrying his mitred head in his 
hands, may be looked for on all the ancient buildings of the 
city. Saint-Denis thus represents the earliest patron saint 
of Paris — the saint of the primitive church and of the 
period of persecution. 

The second patron saint of the city — the saint of the 
Prankish conquest — is locally and artistically even more 
important. Like Jeanne d'Arc, she touches the strong 
French sentiment of patriotism. Sainte-Genevieve, a peas- 
ant girl of Nanterre (on the outskirts of Paris), was born in 
241, during the stormy times of the barbarian irruptions. 
When she was seven years old, Saint-Germain, of Auxerre, 
on his way to Britain, saw la pucellette Genevieve^ and be- 
came aware, by divine premonition, of her predestined 
glory. When she had grown to woman's estate, and was 
a shepherdess at Nanterre, a barbarian leader (identified in 
the legend with Attila, King of the Huns) threatened to lay 
siege to the little city. But Genevieve, warned of God, ad- 
dressed the people, begging them not to leave their homes, 
and assuring them of the miraculous protection of heaven. 
And indeed, as it turned out, the barbarians, without any 
obvious reason, changed their line of march, and avoided 



SAINT-DENIS 25 

Paris. Again, when Childeric, the father of Clovis, in- 
vested the city, the people suffered greatly from sickness 
and famine. Then Genevieve took command of the boats 
which were sent up stream to Troyes for succour, stilled 
by her prayers the frequent tempests, and brought the ships 
back laden with provisions. After the Franks had captured 
Paris, Sainte-Genevieve carried on Roman traditions into 
the Frankish court ; she was instrumental in converting 
Clovis and his wife Clotilde ; and when she died, at 
eighty-nine, a natural death, she was buried at the side of 
her illustrious disciples. Her image may frequently be 
recognized on early buildings by the figure of a devil at 
her side, endeavouring in vain (as was his wont) to ex- 
tinguish her lighted taper — the taper, no doubt, of Roman 
Christianity, which she did not allow to be quenched by 
the Frankish invaders. 

Round these two sacred personages, the whole art and 
history of early Paris continually cluster. The beautiful 
figure of the simple peasant enthusiast, Sainte-Genevieve, 
in particular, has largely coloured Parisian ideas and Pari- 
sian sympathies. Her shrine still attracts countless thou- 
sands of the faithful. 



OLD PARIS 

LOUIS BLANC 

MONTAIGNE loved Paris, I was going to say 
as a lover loves his mistress. He spoke of it 
with tenderness : " Paris," he said, " has 
owned my heart from infancy ; and good things have come 
to me there ; the more I have since seen of other beautiful 
cities the more the beauty of this one advances in my affec- 
tions : I love it tenderly, even its warts and blemishes." 

Whence arose Montaigne's tenderness for Paris .? 

At that epoch, the magnificent boulevards which the 
ediles of the day have created with a wave of their magic 
wand did not exist. At that time, there was no Rue de 
Rivoli leading to the Hotel de Ville ; nor boulevards such 
as Babylon might have envied, nor gigantic hotels, nor glit- 
tering cafes, nor squares ; there was nothing approaching 
the Bois de Boulogne, nor anything resembling the Pare de 
Monceaux. The Louvre, the principal facade of which, 
begun in 1666 on the plans of Claude Perrault, was only 
finished in 1670, at that time presented the somewhat un- 
attractive aspect of a feudal castle, defended on the side of 
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, by a wide moat fed by the 
waters of the Seine. The Chateau of the Tuileries, which 
Catherine de Medicis had built in 1564 for her private 
dwelling, but from which she had fled immediately after- 

26 




MAiSON HENRI IV. 



OLD PARIS 27 

wards on I do not know what astrological prediction, was 
separated from the garden by a street; and this garden, 
quite different from what Andre Le Notre made it in 1665, 
showed, mingled in confusion, an aviary, a pond, a me- 
nagerie, and a warren, all of which was protected by a 
strong wall, a moat and a bastion. There was no Place de 
la Concorde then, and the trees which to-day form the 
Champs-Elysees were not to be planted till 1670. The 
Marche aux Chevaux, where the minions of Henri 11. 
fought against the favourites of the Duke of Guise, only 
became the Place Royale under Henri IV. It was a simple 
house, called " hotel hdti de neuf" which stood on the spot 
where a few years later Marie de Medicis caused the foun- 
dations of the Palais du Luxembourg to be laid. It goes 
without saying that the Palais Royale did not exist, not 
having been built, by Jacques Le Mercier, for Cardinal de 
Richelieu, till 1629. The construction of the Hotel de 
Ville had been undertaken on the plans of the Italian arch- 
itect Boccardo ; but the work was only commenced. The 
quays, composed of roughly-hewn masonry, did not extend 
the whole length of the banks of the Seine : the right bank 
had only three; the left bank, only one; the He de la Cite 
had none at all. There were only four bridges : Notre- 
Dame, Petit-Pont, Pont-au-Change and Pont Saint-Michel. 
Besides the two Italian theatres of Albert Ganasse and the 
Gelosi, there was a French theatre, the Hotel de Bour- 
gogne, where the Confreres de la Passion and the Enfants 
sans souci were played under the direction of the Prince des 



28 PARIS 

Sots ; but what theatres ! The public squares were scarcely 
more than cross-roads. As a shift for promenades planted 
with trees, there was the Pre aux Clercs. As for cafes, peo- 
ple scarcely knew what they were, the first two cafes in Paris 
being only established there towards the end of the Seven- 
teenth Century by the Armenian, Pascal, and the Sicilian, 
Francois Procope. The streets, generally too narrow to 
allow carriages to pass each other, were ill paved, and, as 
for their number, it is furnished by these verses of the 
time : 

" Dedans la citi de Paris, 
Y a des rues trentesix, 
Et, ail quartier de JIulepoix, 
En y a quatre-vingt-trois, 
Et, au quartier de Saint-Denis, 
Trois cents il n^en faiit que six, 
Contez-les bien tout d voire aise : 
Quartre cents y a et treize" 

We see it was a very shabby Paris, in comparison with 
the Paris of M. Haussmann, of which Montaigne spoke 
with so much reverence and love. Can it be that cities 
may possess another beauty than that which consists in the 
splendour of its palaces, the sumptuousness of its edifices, 
the luxury of its public establishments, the multiplicity of 
its promenades, and the number and width of its streets } 

The truth is that in all periods of its existence Paris has 
possessed a charm independent of its external beauty. It 
was this indefinable charm to which the Caesar Julian sub- 
mitted, under whose administration, be it noted in passing, 
the name of Paris replaced that of Lutetia, when he wrote 



OLD PARIS 29 

— " formerly I spent my winter season in my dear Lutetia." 
And what was the Paris of the Fourteenth Century ? It 
was that species of fascination which so long afterwards 
made Charles V. say that Rouen was the greatest city of 
France, since Paris was a world. There was no period in 
which Paris was not the object of a profound, and, let it be 
well understood, an entirely moral admiration. What 
passionate homage, for example, Paris received in the 
Eighteenth Century from strangers who came from every 
corner of the globe, among whom were so many celebrated 
Englishmen ! Richardson, John Wilkes, Horace Walpole, 
Gibbon, Hume, Sterne, inhaled with delight the atmos- 
phere of Paris ; I mean its intellectual atmosphere. " Ah ! " 
wrote Gibbon with a sigh, " if I had been rich and in- 
dependent, Paris is where I should have fixed my resi- 
dence." Did not Hume also write : " I thought of estab- 
lishing myself there for the rest of my life ! " And it is 
not at all by the external beauty of Paris that Gibbon and 
Hume explain the attachment with which Paris inspired 
them. Both gave as the reason for this attachment the in- 
expressible sweetness of the intellectual life that was en- 
joyed there. 

Let us come down from the Eighteenth Century to the 
Nineteenth, and hear what Goethe said of Paris on May 
3d, 1827, in conversation with Eckermann : "Now pic- 
ture to yourself a city like Paris where the best heads of a 
great empire are all gathered together in one place, and in- 
struct each other and mutually elevate one another by their 



30 PARIS 

relations, their struggles, and their emulations every day ; 
where all that is most remarkable in all realms of nature, 
and in the art of every quarter of the world, is accessible 
to study every day ; picture to yourself this universal city 
where every step upon a bridge or a square recalls a great 
past, where a fragment of history is unrolled at the corner 
of every street. And, nevertheless, do not imagine the 
Paris of a limited and dull century, but the Paris of the 
Nineteenth Century in which for three generations of man- 
kind beings like Moliere, Voltaire, Diderot and others like 
them have placed in circulation an abundance of ideas 
which nowhere else in the world can be found thus 
gathered together, and then you will understand how 
Ampere, growing greater in the midst of this wealth, can 
be something at twenty-four years of age." 

I hope the reader has not failed to notice these words : 
'•^IVhere every step upon a bridge or a square recalls a great 
past, where a fragment of history is u7irolled at the corner of 
every street." 

How much, in fact, is added to the enchantments of 
Paris, the metropolis of science and the arts, of fashion 
and taste, of literature and mind, by the imposing series of 
great men and great things whose image animates such of 
its stones that have not yet been broken up and dispersed ! 
If, even in the Fourth Century, the little of Paris that ex- 
isted occupied so large a space in Julian's heart 5 if, in the 
Sixteenth Century, Paris already possessed in the eyes of 
Charles V. the majesty of a universe and compelled the 



OLD PARIS 31 

adoration of Montaigne ; if, in the Eighteenth Century, it 
exercised a power of irresistible seduction over so many 
brilliant intelligencies, what a super-addition of prestige and 
attraction it gains to-day from the incessantly multiplied 
number of illustrious phantoms that thought can evoke 
there ! The old university and the struggles of its sa- 
vants, the scholars of former days and their wild pranks, the 
parliaments, the states-general, the unsuccessful revolution 
of Marcel the provost of the merchants, the uprising of 
the Maillotins, the sanguinary quarrel of the Armagnacs 
and Bourguignons, the English, suffered for a moment and 
then driven off, the massacre of the Calvinists, the troubles 
of the Ligue, the day of the Barricades, the Fronde, the reign 
of the salons and of the philosophers, the French Revolu- 
tion and what followed ; what aspects, what truly memo- 
rable episodes, what sudden turns of fortune in the great 
drama in the history of France have been contained in the 
history of Paris ! 

And this is what constitutes what I should like to call 
its soul ; for cities have a soul and that is their past ; and 
their material beauty only gains its full value when it pre- . 
serves the visible traces of that other beauty which is made 
up of memories, — memories terrible or pathetic, memories 
that amuse or move us, that sadden or console, but every 
one of which contains enlightenment and serves to feed the 
flame of the mind. To quote only a few examples, I have 
never passed through the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain-1' 
Auxerrois without glancing at the house whence, August 



32 PARIS 

22d, 1572, the arquebus was fired that wounded the Ad- 
mirable Coligny, and without immediately seeing the vic- 
tims of Saint Bartholomew start up, I have never en- 
tered the Cafe de la Regence without seeing Diderot there, 
following a game of chess, played by "Legal the profound, 
Philidor the subtle, or Mayot the solid," and without be- 
ing led by the natural thread of ideas into that famous 
army of encyclopedists whom Diderot so bravely led to 
the assault on superstition. At the epoch of August the 
lOth, 1792, there was on the Place du Carrousel a shop 
occupied by Fauvelet, Bourricnne's brother. Whilst the 
people were besieging the chateau^ a man was enjoying the 
sight from the upper windows of this shop. He was an 
officer who had been dismissed from the service, very poor, 
and greatly embarrassed ; and in order to live he had been 
forced to form the project of letting and sub-letting houses. 
He was named Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon, still un- 
known to the French Revolution, and watching it in 
operation; what a combination! Now all that this sug- 
gests was said to the passer-by by Fauvelet's shop : who 
would not regret the loss of it ? 

Paris is full of these memories imprinted on marble, 
wood, or stone. Are they destined to disappear ? Among 
those children of France who have long since left it, I 
know some who grow pale with terror when they are told : 
" If you were to return to Paris to-morrow, you would no 
longer recognize it," What ! Already ? Alas ! Never- 
theless it was good to recognize ! 



OLD PARIS 33 

Let us be understood however. Let the unhealthy 
streets be laid low and let spacious ways be opened ; let 
room for the sunlight be made in the sombre quarters ; let 
Paris be given lungs where it experiences difficulty in 
breathing ; it must be done, since hygiene orders it and 
progress exacts it. But wherever either the interest of 
public safety, or the inevitable development of civilization, 
does not prescribe that the Parisian government shall show 
itself pitiless, be merciful to old Paris, be merciful to the 
visible remains of that past which the present cannot de- 
stroy in all that recalls it without committing the crime of 
parricide ! Mercy ! Well, yes, mercy even for some of 
the warts and blemishes that Montaigne loved ! 



ALONG THE SEINE 

LOUIS ENJULT 

IF in the work of regeneration houses consecrated by 
illustrious memories disappear, if the dwellings of 
Moliere, Corneilie, Racine, Boileau, Scarron and 
Rousseau are not preserved, is the memory of these great 
men bound to obscure and vulgar chambers, long dishon- 
oured by profane inhabitants i' The curious and charming 
private edifices of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance 
no longer exist : the great mansions of the aristocracy of Louis 
XIV. and Louis XV., were sacked by the first Revolution. 
Modern demolitions therefore only overthrow insignificant 
buildings, obscure rubbish, for which the artist has no re- 
grets; and besides when destruction comes across a monu- 
ment, the Tour-Saint-Jacques-des-Boucheries for example, 
it halts and turns aside, or surrounds it with a square that 
increases its value and its effect ; what it destroys is found 
again in the pious memory of the poets. Paris has 
great pretensions to maritime glory. It is not only a 
port, but contains forty more or less considerable ports : 
the port de Bercy, de la Rapee, de la gare d'lvry, de 
r Hopital, port Saint-Bernard, de la Tournelle, port Saint- 
Nicholas, and many others. 

Wine and a fritter ! bargemen and floats, that is Bercy ! 

34 



ALONG THE SEINE 35 

Bercy, which has an important commerce in wine and 
timber, is divided into three quarters, la Rapee, la Grande- 
Pinte, and the valley of Fecamp. 

It was under Charles IX. that a citizen of Paris, Jean 
Rouvet had the idea of bringing wood to Paris without the 
aid of a boat; the idea succeeded and it made its way by 
following the thread of the water. Arrived at Bercy, the 
wood is given up to the dechireurs de bateau who take the 
float to pieces ; to the ravageurs who wash it and extract 
the nails and every species of iron ; and, finally, to the 
d'ebardeurs who pile it in decasteres on the bank. This am- 
phibious population of rude and savage manners has sup- 
plied the drama and fiction with more than one type ; it 
has given Bercy its character and physiognomy. When 
we see the people athletic and violent in the mud and water 
up to the waist, with rolled-up sleeves and open blouse, in 
wide felt hats without form or name, we are far from think- 
ing of those d'ebardeurs of fancy, in satin vests, silk stock- 
ings and velvet shoes, with the graces and smiles of the 
mad carnival nights, of whom the poet has said : 

" What is a debardeur ? 

An angel joined to a demon 
A fancy, a marvel, a caprice, 
A discrete murmur that reaches you through the shadows, 
A word of love like a ray ; 
It is a bold gesture, a hand that presses 
A perfumed glove, a countess's foot 
In Cinderella's slipper," 

Bercy is still more celebrated for the wines it receives — 



36 PARIS 

and for those it manufactures, without wine or grape^ if we 
may believe evil tongues and light talk. 

The bridge of Bercy is the first we meet on the way j 
it commands the royal river for a long distance, down as 
well as up stream ; from its elevated piles three melancholy 
monuments are visible : Bicetre, the Salpetriere, and Char- 
enton. 

Do not let us enter that cite dolente to-day. Let us 
even without stopping, pass the Jardin des Plantes, to which 
we will return later. Let us salute the Pont d' Austerlitz 
and the memory of a victory. It was built from 1801 to 
1807 by Bcaupre ; its fine iron arches are supported by 
piers of masonry ; it is this bridge that joins the Jardin 
des Plantes to the boulevards on the right bank; its 
horizon embraces the country through which the tortuous 
Seine unrolls its argent rings, and the granite line of the 
quays shaded by trees. 

The foot-bridge of the Estacade joins the He Saint- 
Louis to what was formerly the island of Louviers ; but 
now Louviers is no longer an island, since the arm of the 
river that separated it from the Quai Morland has been filled 
up. This island has had several names that are still to be 
found in the old historians of Paris. In the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury it was the He des Javiaux, that is to say the island of 
alluvion, sand and ooze ; two hundred years later it was 
the He d' Entragues, then the He de Louviers. Now it is 
nothing but the bank of a quay. In 1549 the provost of 
the merchants and aldermen of Paris gave a fete to Henri 



ALONG THE SEINE 37 

11. in the He de Louviers ; in these martial sports of the 
citizens the monarch could see an image of a siege and all 
the changing fortunes of attack and defense. Notwith- 
standing its union with terra firma people still say lie Lou- 
viers, but it is long since they said the He aux Juifs, He du 
Louvre, He aux Treilles, or He du Gros-Caillon. The 
continents are invading the seas. All these ancient isles 
are joined to the neighbouring quays. The He Saint-Louis 
is joined to terra firma by five or six bridges : the Pont de 
Damiette, built under the Empire, of iron wire; the Pont 
Marie, rebuilt in the Sixteenth Century by an architect of 
that name; until 1786 it was covered with houses. The 
bridges of the Middle Ages were veritable streets with 
houses of four or five stories that cut off the view of the 
beautiful perspectives of the river ; the Pont Marie is built 
of stone. The little foot-bridge of Constantine dates from 
1836. The Pont de Louis Philippe dates from 1832; that 
of La Cite is ten years younger. The most celebrated of 
all these bridges is the Pont de la Tourelle, restored, 
widened, and considerably lowered in 1847. "^^^ old 
bridge dated from 1656 ; it owed its name to the fortress 
of Philippe Auguste that was situated in its vicinity : La 
Tourelle, that was afterwards converted into a prison and 
demolished in 1792. 

Mercier in his Tableau de Paris has given to the He 
Saint-Louis a certificate of good life and manners. He 
says : " This quarter seems to have escaped the great cor- 
ruption of the town. No girl of evil life finds a domicile 



38 PA^ilIS 

there ; as soon as discovered she is expelled, she is moved 
on. The citizens look after it ; the morals of individuals 
are known there ; any girl who commits a fault becomes 
the object of censure and never gets married in the quarter. 
Nothing represents a provincial town better than the quarter 
of the isle. It has been very well said : 

" The dweller in the Marais is a foreigner in the isle." 

Let us hope that the He Saint-Louis still deserves such 
high praise. It has preserved a considerable number of his- 
torical memories ; the most popular, that which the natives 
relate the most willingly in the familiar chat of the long 
twilights is the judicial duel between the dog of Montargis 
and the knight Macaire, the assassin of Aubri de Montdidier. 

The He Saint-Louis possesses a church, Saint-Louis-en- 
r He, and several fine mansions, the hotels de Pimodan, de 
Chenizot, Jassaud, and de Bertonvilliers ; but the glory of 
all these aristocratic dwellings pales before the regal splen- 
dours of the Hotel Lambert. 

The Hotel Lambert occupies the western point of the 
He Saint-Louis j we know that it was built by the architect 
Leveau towards the middle of the Seventeenth Century for 
Lambert de Thorigny, counsellor to the parliament. The 
Flemish sculptor. Van Obstal, modelled all its ornamenta- 
tion in stucco in the Italian manner, groups of children, 
bunches of flowers, and trophies of arms. Charles Lebrun, 
Eustache Lesueur, and Francois Perrier were entrusted with 
the paintings. The mansion has passed successively 
through the hands of iY.q fcnnier-g'eneral Dupin, the Marquis 



ALONG THE SEINE 39 

of Chatel-Laumont and the Count of Montalivet. It was 
occupied thirty years ago by a boarding-house keeper and a 
manufacturer of military beds when it was bought by Prince 
Czartoriski : ^ the prince thus delivered it from the clutches 
of the hande-noire and revived the splendours of its best 
days. 

The works of art had greatly suffered. Of the work of 
Francois Perrier only four paintings remained, which are 
still to be seen on the ceiling in the Cabinet of the Muses : 
Apollo pursuing Daphne^ the 'Judgment of Midas, the Fall of 
Phaeton, and Parnassus, 

Lebrun's paintings still exist in all their integrity, and 
to-day, as in 1649, ^^^7 ^orm the most beautiful ornament 
of the great gallery of the mansion. 

Lesueur worked for nine years on the paintings of the 
Hotel Lambert. He painted twelve subjects for the 
Chamber of Love and the Cabinet of the Muses. Apollo 
entrusting Phaeton with his Chariot, transferred from the 
fresco to canvas, has been bought by the Louvre with the 
compositions inspired by the muses. The others have been 
dispersed by sale. At the Hotel Lambert a few grisailles 
by this amiable master are still to be seen. 

Once or twice a week the rooms of the Hotel Lambert 
are opened to the elite of the Parisian world, who are 
only too happy to listen to the call of benefit and pleas- 
ure. 

The peace of the He Saint-Louis, a veritable peace of 
1 It is still in possession of Prince Czartoriski. — E, S. 



40 PARIS 

God, has more than once attracted to its great mansions, 
savants, poets, magistrates, and artists, whilst the vicinity 
of Notre-Dame assures to it in perpetuity the blessed pres- 
ence of " our venerable brothers, the canons." 

Two bridges join the He Saint-Louis to the Cite. 

The Cite is the cradle of Paris. 

*' My dear Lutetia," wrote Julian, "is built in the mid- 
dle of a river upon a little island joined by two stone 
bridges to either side of the land." Bordered by the quais 
de 1' Horloge, Napoleon, D'Orsay, dcs Orfevres,du Marche, 
Neuf, and de 1' Archcveche, the Cite communicates with 
the two sides of the Seine by a multitude of bridges — 
Louis Philippe, d' Arcole, Notre-Dame, au-Change, Pont- 
Neuf, Pont des Arts Saint-Michel, Petit-Pont, au Doubles, 
and de 1' Archeveche. The Cite is subdivided into two 
quarters : the quarter of the Cite proper, and the quarter 
of the Palais de Justice. Notre-Dame on one side, and 
the Palais on the other, that is to say Religion and the 
State concentrate upon this single point the whole impor- 
tance of the capital. 

Until the end of the last century the Seine below Notre- 
Dame bathed the gardens of the chapter. A vast quay has 
given back for free circulation the promontory in face of 
which the broadened river divides into two arms to embrace 
the floating Cite. Let us halt for a moment to cast a last 
glance over the noble cathedral, with its apsis supported by 
gigantic counter-forts and the arched buttresses of the ex- 
terior work, with their rectangular pinnacles and dentellated 



ALONG THE SEINE 41 

little spires, standing out before us in profile with that min- 
gled lightness and strength that is the distinguishing charac- 
teristic of ogival architecture. A few steps more and we 
are before that grand doorway that awakes the imposing idea 
of power and majesty in the soul. This is the spot whither 
the condemned, with torches in their hands and cords around 
their necks, came to hear their sentence and make the 
amende honorable before being executed. Behind the apsis 
of the church and on the site of the destroyed residence of 
the archbishop, a charming fountain has been constructed, 
the ogival style of which, though perhaps a little too florid, 
yet harmonizes well enough with the neighbouring archi- 
tecture. 

The Seine from which we must not stray in this rapid 
excursion, also bathes the walls of the Hotel-Dieu. The 
pious edifice faces the Parvis Notre-Dame : it is the oldest 
hospital in the world, and for ten centuries it was the only 
hospital in Paris. Its foundation is generally attributed to 
St. Landry, Bishop of Paris under Clovis II. in the year 
660. At the end of the Twelfth Century it only contained 
four halls ; but it received successive and rapid additions. 
Philippe Auguste, St. Louis, and Henri IV., three great 
men, declared themselves its protectors and aggrandized it. 
More than one illustrious man has died at the Hotel-Dieu ; 
more than one head that harboured grand projects and 
noble thoughts, has lain upon the low pillow of public 
charity. Among the illustrious memories that the hospital 
has preserved, one of the most melancholy will always be 



42 PARIS 

that of the poet, Gilbert, cut ofF in the flower of his life and 
before that sweet blossoming of glory that would have 
saved him. For him glory only illuminated a tomb. On 
a slab of black granite placed on one of the great staircases 
is engraved his strophe of farewell, so often repeated by 
bitter lips complaining of Fate : 

" Au banquet de la vie, in for tun t convive 
yapparus un jour, et je meurs ! 
ye meurs, et sur la tombe oii lentement f arrive, 
Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." 

The course of the water now brings us to the Quai des 
Orfevres before the Palais de Justice. This immense 
building comprises a whole world, and offers precious ex- 
amples of the architecture of seven or eight centuries. On 
this very spot under the Roman rule a fortress existed. 
Julius Caesar had caused two towers to be erected at the 
head of the two bridges by which Lutetia communicated 
with the river-banks ; these two towers afterwards became 
the Grand-Chatelet and the Petit-Chatelet. The Caesar 
of the Gauls usually dwelt in the palace of the Thermes 
and the Cite. Charlemagne and the whole Carlovingian 
dynasty preferred Aix or Laon to Paris. But after Paris 
had been blockaded by the Normans, Eudes, the first of the 
Capetians, came and shut himself up in the palace of the 
Cite to sustain the siege there. He saved Paris and fixed 
his abode in the Cite, which was long the home of the 
princes of his race. Robert le Pieux enlarged the palace 
of the Cite. Philippe Auguste, who laid the foundations 



ALONG THE SEINE 43 

of the Louvre, still lived there when he espoused the 
daughter of the King of Denmark. Saint-Louis had the 
palace partly rebuilt ; he erected the Sainte-Chapelle and 
the immense and magnificent hall destined for the solemn 
acts of the government and the court festivals, which is 
now replaced by the hall of the Bas-Perdus. Until the 
reign of Francois L, our Kings temporarily inhabited the 
palace ; but after Louis le Hutin, its principal guest, it was 
the Parliament House. The great hall was always used 
for the ceremonies and official receptions of royalty ; there 
the ambassadors were introduced to the king, and there the 
marriages of the children of France were celebrated. The 
clercs de la Basoche there played their farces, sottises^ and 
moralities that so greatly delighted our good ancestors. 
Fire, which after man is the greatest scourge of old monu- 
ments, destroyed the great hall in 16 18. Everything 
perished : including the marble table so famous in the 
annals of the ancient monarchy, around which sat the Con- 
n'etahl'ie the Admiralty and the Waters and Forests^ — and the 
statues of the Kings of France from Pharamond to Henri 
IV. A second conflagration devastated the palace in 1776. 
Now nothing is left of the ancient edifice but the clock- 
tower and the two neighbouring towers, the Sainte-Chap- 
elle, the kitchens, and a portion of the galleries. 

The Palais de Justice comprises the whole space between 
the Rue de la Barillerie and the Rue Harlay ; with its an- 
nexes, the Prefecture of Police and the Conciergerie, it ex- 
tends from the Quai des Orfevres to the Quai de THor- 



44 PARIS 

loge. The principal facade that fronts on the Rue de la 
Barillerie has recently been improved by a semicircular 
court ; a high railing separates the street from the court of 
the palace, the facade of which rises quite majestically. 

The second facade of the palace fronts the Quai de 
I'Horloge. But first, before reaching this quay, we must 
pass the Tour de I'Horloge, a vast and heavy square con- 
struction, surmounted by a little lantern, the lightness of 
which is in striking contrast to the heavy mass of the 
tower. The clock from which it gets its name attracts 
our attention and commands admiration by its elegant pro- 
portions and brilliant decorations. 

It was on this spot that Charles V. placed the most 
ancient clock of Paris, made by a German clockmaker 
named Vic. It was restored many times, notably under 
Henri II., Charles IX., and Henri III. 

A little porch in carved wood forming a penthouse, 
shelters the dial which stands out from a background sown 
with innumerable fleurs-de-lis, like the mantle of our old 
kings. 

On the side of the quay, new buildings connect the 
Tour de I'Horloge with the Tour de Montmorency ; a {ew 
steps further on is the Tour de Cesar. Between these last 
two towers, and pierced in a black wall, is the arched door 
of the Conciergerie ; a fourth tower, much smaller, is only 
noticeable for its extremely pointed conical roof. 

On the western side, the Rue Harlay, that runs from one 
street to another, covers the Palais. A vast arcade, that 



ALONG THE SEINE 45 

opens in the middle of the street into the axis of the Place 
Dauphine, gives entrance into the Cour de Harlay, the tall 
houses of which, of no architectural beauty, formerly served 
as habitation for the canons of the Sainte-Chapelle and the 
subaltern officers of the Palais de Justice. One of these 
black houses saw the birth of Nicholas Despreaux, who 
was Boileau; in all this neighbourhood we inhale that 
strong classical odour of epistles and doctrines that enables 
the city to dispense with putting up the traditional slab of 
marble with its inscription in letters of gold. 

On the side of the Quai des Orfevres, the Palais disap- 
pears behind the thick buildings of the Prefecture of Police 
and the elegant constructions of the Sainte-Chapelle. 

We now know the external aspect of the Palais de Justice 
and all that is to be seen from the waterside ; we will not 
go inside. A volume would be requisite to describe all 
that little world that lives upon justice, that is to say at its 
expense ! These rapid pages would not suffice to sketch 
so many diverse physiognomies from the president of the 
Cour d' Assises to the Audiencier of the Correctionelle ; 
from the master, grown white under his briefs, to the beard- 
less licentiate on the scent of practice in the hall of Pas- 
Perdus ; from the duchess pleading in separation to the 
butcher convicted of merrymaking. It is better not to 
begin than not to know where to end. 

Going along the Quai des Orfevres, on our right we 
soon come across a little street, short and narrow, thronged 
by an active and silent crowd, busy and calmj there we 



46 PARIS 

see passing like shadows men of prudent carriage who do 
not seem to be looking in any direction but who see every- 
where ; sometimes a couple of too-obliging acolytes lead 
by the arm an individual of suspicious appearance but who 
is quite able to walk alone ; — frequently again we see 
weeping women or children in tears crowding about in- 
exorable doors. This street is the Rue de Jerusalem, these 
courts full of closed vans, municipal guards, and sergents de 
ville are the Prefecture of Police, that sad ante-room of the 
cour (T assises and the galleys. 

The Pont Notre-Dame and the great and fine Rue de 
la Cite separate the Quai Napoleon from the Quai aux 
Fleurs. 

Twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday, the Quai aux 
Fleurs sees those pretty markets ^ where the gardeners ex- 
pose in turn according to the season the most beautiful 
products of their gardens. These markets are essentially 
Parisian, and the middle classes, especially the women take 
the most lively interest in them. It is not the magnifi- 
cence of the establishment that attracts them, for nothing 
is more simple than the display of our florists. — A piece of 
linen on four uprights, a few shrubs of rare foliage, a little 
fountain that babbles while pouring out its faint jet, these 
are the prime expenses. As for the sweet and brilliant mer- 
chandise in pots, cases, gathered and tied in bunches or still 

> The other flower markets are held at the Place de la Rfepublique on 
Mondays and Thursdays and at the Place de la Madeleine on Tuesdays 
and Fridays. — E. S. 



ALONG THE SEINE 47 

holding to the soil that bore it, it is heaped and piled in 
confusion around the women who sell it. The morning is 
reserved for the first choice ; prices are maintained : they 
fall as the day passes. So it is a pleasure in the twilight 
to see the grisettes of the Sorbonne and the female students 
of the Quartier Saint-Jacques descend towards the Seine 
jingling in their joyful hands the price of a long day's 
work; they arrive, look, touch, smell, and ask the price of 
everything and soon return with a light step to their modest 
nest that sings quite close to the sky, carrying with them a 
sprig of mignonette, a rose-bush, or a pot of clove-pinks, 
the perfume of the poor. These soft colours and sweet 
perfumes call up for them the smiling image of their 
paternal fields and they will be happier to-morrow when 
they water this little garden under their windows than 
Semiramis, of superb memory, under the jasmins starred 
with silver and the palms with golden branches in the 
gardens of Babylon. A moralist has said : " the humblest 
spray of verdure suffices to make us dream and sometimes 
to console us." Man has built the Louvre in vain, he 
needs a rose in a stone-pot ! 

From the Quai aux Fleurs, the eye that takes in the 
Seine sees the Quai de Gevres on the other side above the 
trees of the Boulevard of the H6tel-de-Ville, and in the 
axis of alignment of the Rue de Rivoli, the top of the 
Tour-Saint-Jacques, to which has been restored the 
colossal statue of its patron and the symbolic animals, the 
old ornamentation of its four corners. 



48 PARIS 

We could not reach the Quai de 1' Horloge without pass- 
ing the Pont-au-Change, the doyen of the bridges of Paris. 
It existed in the time of JuHan ; it is the most ancient 
way of communication between Lutetia and the right bank. 
Like most of the bridges of the Middle Ages, this was 
covered with houses that were not pulled down till 1788. 
At first it bore the name of Grand-Pont, up till the reign 
of Louis VIL who established the goldsmiths on one side 
and the money-changers on the other ; the latter gave it its 
name, Pont-au-Change, that it still bears. A monument 
placed on the quay facing the bridge and now destroyed 
represented the dauphin of France — who was afterwards 
Louis XIV. — between Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria. 
The Pont-au-Change had its day of grandeur, vogue, and 
eclat. Until the reign of Henri IV. it was the promenade 
of the day, the Boulevard de Gard of the Fifteenth and 
Sixteenth Centuries, the rendezvous of the newsmongers, the 
lounging-place of the idle, and the great centre of reunion 
of those eternal Parisian saunterers who are found wher- 
ever there is nothing doing. 

Facing us, the Quai de Gevres separates the Pont-au- 
Change from the Place du Chatelet which occupies the 
same ground as did formerly the prison of the Chatelet, so 
celebrated during the war between the Armagnacs and the 
Burgundians. In 1807, a little monument that is still to 
be seen was erected on this place : it is a bronze column 
dedicated to Victory. At the top, Victory personified 
stands on tiptoe with her bare feet on a half-sphere, and, 



ALONG THE SEINE 49 

with hands raised above her head, is scattering palms and 
crowns. 

At the point of the Cite, the Seine reunites the two 
arms that enfold the cradle of ancient Paris, and, contained 
in a single bed, henceforth the river flows on, calm and 
majestic between two banks of palaces. 

It is at this point that in 1578 Henri III. laid the foun- 
dations of the bridge finished by Henri IV. twenty-five 
years later, resting its double-piles on the open ground of 
the Cite ; it is this same bridge that, from habit, we still 
call Pont-Neuf to-day, although it began its third century 
long ago. 

The Pont-Neuf is the most popular of all the monu- 
ments of Paris. " As well-known as the Pont-Neuf ! " is a 
proverb understood and accepted even on the bridge of 
Avignon. Notwithstanding its heavy and irregular construc- 
tion, its projection like a donkey's back and the exaggerated 
curve of its arches, this bridge was long regarded as the 
most beautiful in all Europe. 

The first somewhat considerable houses of the Faubourg 
Saint-Germain date from Henri III. Until the reign of 
that prince there was no assured communication for the 
Cite with the two banks of the river ; people crossed by 
ferry. The King, seeing the rapid growth of Paris down- 
stream from the Cite, resolved to build another bridge. 
He laid its first stone with great state solemnity accom- 
panied by his mother, Catherine de Medici and his wife, 
Louise de Vaudemont, and assisted by the Parliament. It 



50 PARIS 

was the day of the death of his two mignons^ Quelus and 
Maugiron, killed in a duel, May 31, 1578. The King was 
sad ; people saw it ; this will be the Pont-des-Pleurs (Bridge 
of Tears) said the courtiers ; such was the first name of the 
Pont-Neuf. The civil war interrupted the work. Henri 
IV. resumed it and completed it with his powerful hands. 
He himself was one of the first to cross it in 1603, and be- 
fore it was completely finished, L'£toile says, "As they 
remonstrated with him that the bridge was not safe and that 
several had broken their necks trying to cross, he replied : — 
'None of them was a king like myself! ' " and he crossed. 
The Pont-Neuf ruined the Pont-au-Change : it was not 
merely the most frequented communication between the 
banks, but it was also the fashionable promenade, the cen- 
tre of the polite world and the necessary rendezvous of all 
who had any time to waste, or wit or money to expend. 
People were not content with crossing the Pont-Neuf, they 
strolled about there, they rested and dwelt there. From 
the first day small merchants established themselves there 
and beside them the theatres of Mondor and Tabarin, the 
spectacle of Desiderio Descombes, who always talked so as 
never to be understood, and the booth of the charlatan 
Gonin, to whom the people soon gave the name of the 
cardinal-minister ; the people pretended that Richelieu 
juggled at least as well as Gonin ; but Richelieu's balls 
were the heads of the nobility ! It was to the Pont- 
Neuf that the mountebanks and buffoons came to try their 
feats of agility and strength before an attentive throng. 



ALONG THE SEINE 51 

Moreover, it was thither that the singers went to sing 
their noels^ songs and couplets of more or less gallant strain 
that were called ponts-neufs in memory of the stage upon 
which they were first brought out. The dentists, cut- 
purses, crimps, highwaymen and pickpockets for a long 
time found lucrative employment for their small society tal- 
ents upon the Pont-Neuf. The clerks of the Basoche 
with their legal bags under their arms mingled there with 
the cadets of Gascony with their swords striking against 
their calves ; the abbes of the court passed along there in 
their sedan-chairs and the equipages of great nobles going 
to the Louvre passed at full trot with their four horses. 

The Pont-Neuf is supported by twelve arches, unequally 
divided by the point of the Cite : seven on one side and 
five on the other. On both faces and throughout its length, 
it is ornamented by a jutting cornice supported by brackets 
of figures of masks, fauns, and satyrs. Some of them are 
attributed to Germain Pilon for the sake of doing them 
honour. At various periods great works of reconstruction 
and repair have been undertaken on the Pont-Neuf. In 
1775 the arches were lowered and the open space between 
the piers was narrowed so that a stronger current might 
carry away the deposit brought down by the river; in 1820 
and 1825 the slope was lessened on each side ; — in 1836 
and 1837 the perpendicular of the seven arches was rees- 
tablished j in 1853 ^"^ 1^54 t^^ entire bridge was taken in 
hand ; the road was remade and raised to the level of the 
abutting streets ; the paths on each side reserved for pedes- 



52 PARIS 

trians were relaid and the little structures on the piles, the 
last vestiges of the houses formerly built upon the Paris 
bridges, were done away with. 

The statue of Henri IV. is no less celebrated than the 
Pont-Neuf. The first statue of the king of triple talent. 

De boire et de battre 
El d^ilre vert-galant, 

was placed by Marie de Alcdicis in 1614 upon a pedestal of 
white marble opposite the Place Dauphine, at the extremity 
of rile de la Cite, on the spot where it makes a kind of 
square mole half overshadowed with trees. At the four 
corners of the pedestal were placed trophies of arms and 
slaves in bronze symbolizing the four quarters of the world. 
Oceanica had not yet emerged from the mists of the Pacific. 
A base of dark blue marble bore the whole monument. 
The memory of Henri IV. will remain sacred in the peo- 
ple's gratitude as in a temple. For two centuries his statue 
was the object of a culte among the Parisians. In '92 the 
populace of the Pont-Neuf forced passers-by to kneel be- 
fore the statue. One year later they dragged it in the mire. 
It was melted down and made into cannons. On the re- 
turn of the Bourbons, the statue of Napoleon in its turn 
was thrown down from the column of the Place Vendome 
and out of it was made the new statue of Henri IV. The 
work of Lemot happily reproduces the lively and frank ex- 
pression of the most French of all our kings ; the bronze 
is animated and alive like the very face of the Bearnais ; the 



ALONG THE SEINE 53 

gesture is at once noble and easy ; the horse has a proud 
action. 

The Samaritaine, of which only a memory now remains, 
was formerly the delight and the admiration of our fathers. 
The Samaritaine, placed at the second western arch on the 
side of Quai de 1' Ecole, was a monumental pump that dis- 
tributed the water by various canals into the Louvre, the 
Tuileries and the Palais Royale. It was constructed under 
Henri IV. by the Fleming, John Lintlaer : a statue of the 
beautiful sinner of Samaria adorned the front of it : she 
was offering water to Christ to drink and He was teaching 
her whence the eternal springs flow. 

Too complicated not to need frequent repairs, the Samar- 
itaine was reconstructed in 1772. The monument was 
composed of three stages. People particularly admired the 
chiming clock below which, as we have said, a group in 
gilded lead represented Christ and the Samaritan on the 
edge of Jacob's well. Jacob's well was represented by a 
basin receiving a stream of water falling from a shell. It 
was not precisely in local colour but one does what one 
can. Below the figures might be read as an inscription 
these words of the Scripture so often applied to Christ. 

Fans hortum^ putens aquarum viventium. 

Before the Revolution, the Samaritaine, considered as a 
royal house, had its particular government : the Revolution 
suppressed the government; in 1813 the pump, a useless 
ornament to the Pont-Neuf and one whose memory is 



54 PARIS 

fading away daily, was demolished. One more glory de- 
parted ! 

We shall soon have finished our voyage now, and the 
boat that carries us will only have to follow the course of 
the water. 

In vain, on my left, the Hotel des Monnaies sounds its 
tempting pieces ; I will not listen to the silver voices ; I 
mention it and will not land ; what's the use ? Nothing 
tempts me in that heavy fai^ade ; one would call it a prison 
much rather than a palace. The Hotel des Monnaies 
stands on the site of the old Conti mansion ; the abbe Ter- 
ray, comptroller-general of the finances, laid its first stone 
in the name of the King, May 30, 1771. It was finished 
in four years. We pass before its principal front that ex- 
tends along the quay between the Rue Guenegaud and the 
Institute. 

A little farther on we see the palace of the Institute, the 
central door of which faces the Pont des Arts and the 
southern gate of the court of the Louvre. The facade of 
the palace of the Institute has had the mistake and misfor- 
tune to be placed opposite to the most admirable portion of 
the Louvre and thus to provoke comparison that is crushing 
to it. 

Cardinal Mazarin ordered in his will of March 6, 1661, 
that a part of his great wealth should be employed in the 
foundation of a college for sixty youths, sons of the nobility 
or the principal citizens of Pignerolles, of the ecclesiastical 
State, of Alsace, of Flanders and of Roussillon.' The offi- 



ALONG THE SEINE 55 

cial deeds gave this college the title of the College Maz- 
arin; the people called it the college of the Four Nations. 
It was built on the site of the Hotel de Nesle ; Louis Le- 
veau drew up the plans, the execution of which was en- 
trusted to the architects Lambert and d'Orbay. 

During the Revolution, the college of the Four Nations 
at first became a jail ; a little later the Committee of Public 
Safety held its sittings there. On the third Brumaire year 
v., the Institute was solemnly installed there. The old acad- 
emies sat at the Louvre : they had only the Seine to cross. 

The principal front, looking on the quay, is in the form 
of a hemicycle ; it is composed of a forepart, the decora- 
tion of which is a Corinthian order very heavy like all that 
is seen on the left bank of the river ; — on each side the two 
wings curve outward towards the ground on the margin of 
the water; the forepart that forms a doorway is crowned 
by a pediment and surmounted by a circular dome, itself 
terminated by a lantern. One of the architectural singu- 
larities of this dome is that externally it presents a circular 
form, and internally an elliptical form. On each side of 
the perron, two lions of cast metal discharge a feeble jet of 
water into a stone trough. These poor lions which regret 
the desert have a look of terrible ennui ; you would say 
that they can hear what is being said inside. The two 
semicircular wings unite the doorway to two very massive 
pavilions supported by arcades. The dome is lofty, but 
without grace or elegance. This palace is one of the worst 
things in Paris. 



56 PARIS 

Our boat now goes under the elevated piles of the Pont 
des Arts. It was built in 1802. For a long time people 
paid a sou to go from the Louvre to the Institute. The 
Republic liberated the Pont des Arts from this servitude ; 
this is one of the most durable things it did. Three blind 
men ornament the Pont des Arts : the first is knitting 
socks, the second is scraping a violin, and the third is 
producing couacs on his clarinet while attempting I know 
not what air that he can never finish ; his little dog beside 
him growls at him in a low tone ; but the poor blind man, 
who plays on as if he were deaf, docs not hear her and be- 
gins again. The dog and the three blind men, inseparable 
habitues of the Pont des Arts, are considered as immeubles 
par destination} It is on the Pont des Arts that the Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain sees the blossoming of the first violet 
of Spring. 

The bridges succeed and approach one another; from 
afar you would say that they touched ; but the crowd 
thronging them seems to require more of them ; look at 
the Pont Royal, opposite the Tuileries and the Rue de 
Bac ; it is almost impassable : horsemen collide, pedestrians 
elbow each other, and carriages get locked fast by their 
axles. But what a charming view, what a varied pano- 
rama, what changing pictures ! On one side, the old Cite, 
motionless in the midst of the river surrounding it, like a 
ship at anchor ; close to us the grand lines of the Louvre, 

1 (Law) animal, thing placed on property by the proprietor for the use 
or enjoyment thereof. 



ALONG THE SEINE 57 

and in that noble garden a multitude of statues and a forest 
of orange-trees ; then, yonder, on the distant horizon, be- 
tween the Bois and the Champs-Elysees, the Arc-de- 
I'Etoile, a mountain of sculptures emerging from the green 
ocean of foliage : all this panoramic view is beautiful by 
day ; at night it is splendid when a thousand lights are re- 
flected in the Seine in long trembling lines, and when above 
all these rays the towers of Saint-Jacques and Notre-Dame 
lift their solid and sombre masses. But meanwhile what 
are those people perched on the parapet doing ? They are 
watching the water flow past and they are counting the de- 
grees measured by the rise of the waters on the scale of 
the bridge. The scale of the bridge of the Tuileries, the 
thermometer of the Pont-Neuf and the cannon of the 
Palais-Royale, — those are the three favourite distractions of 
the middle-class Parisian. 

The great trees in the gardens of the Tuileries now cast 
their shadow and freshness upon the river which washes 
flowery terraces, the great Jerusalem barracks, and the 
d'Orsay palace on the left bank, and finally reaches the 
Pont de la Concorde widowed of its warrior statues that 
King Louis Philippe had removed to the big court of Ver- 
sailles. At last there remains that palace neighbourhood 
that will not be taken away from it : the Chamber of 
Deputies, the Presidency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
and, above all, the Place de la Concorde with its statues, 
fountains, obelisk, the great buildings of the Garde-Meu- 
bles, and, at the end of the Rue Royale, as if worthily to 



58 PARIS 

close this perspective in which marvels form a scale, the 
church of the Madeleine. 

Now we proceed between the majestic quays d'Orsay, de 
Billy, and de la Conference, seeing promenaders upon the 
Fonts des Invalides, de I'Alma, or d'lena. 

This bridge of lena, that connects the Champ de Mars 
with the Champs-Elysees is embellished with a grandiose 
decoration. At each of its four angles is a colossal group 
of men and horses representing the great warlike races of 
the ancient world, the Greeks, Romans, Gauls and Arabs. 
These must be viewed from a little distance and in the 
perspective demanded by the works of decorative art. The 
Gallic group, by the strong hand of Preault, of all the four 
best answers the exigencies of monumental sculpture.^ 

• The bridges of to-day are as follows : Pont National ; Pont de Tol- 
biac ; Pont de Percy ; Pont d' Austerlitz ; Pont Sully ; Pont Marie ; Pont 
Louis Philippe ; Pont de la Tournelle ; Pont Saint-Louis; Pont d' Arcole ; 
Pont Notre-Dame ; Pont-au-Change ; Pont do 1' Archevechfe; Pont au 
Double; Petit-Pont; Pont Saint-Michel ; PontXeuf; Pont des Arts; Pont 
des Saints-P^res or du Carrousel; Pont Royale ; Pont de Solferino; Pont 
de la Concorde; Pont Alexandre IIL; Pont des Invalides; Pont de 1' 
Alma; Pont de Icna; Pont de Passy ; Pont de Crenelle; Pont Mira- 
beau; Pont Viaduc d' Auteuil or Pon du Point du Jour. The newest 
bridge is the Pont Alexandre IIL the corner-stone of which was laid by 
Nicholas III. of Russia in October, 1896. It joins the Champs-Elysees to 
the Esplanade des Invalides. — E. S. 



j^i-'A- 



V^.^- 
A x,^ 





SAlXTE-CHAPELLE 



SAINTE-CHAPELLE 

PHILIP GILBERT HJMERTON 

THE origin of the Sainte-Chapelle is probably known 
already to most of my readers. It is nothing 
more than a large stone shrine to contain relics. 
Nothing could exceed the joy of Saint-Louis when he be- 
lieved himself to have become the possessor of the real 
crown of thorns and a large piece of the true cross. He 
bought them at a very high price from the Emperor of 
Constantinople,^ and held them in such reverence that he 
and his brother, the Count of Artois, carried them in their 
receptacle on their shoulders, (probably as a palanquin is 
carried), walking barefooted through the streets of Sens and 
Paris ; such was the thoroughness of the King's faith and 
his humility towards the objects of his veneration. 

These feelings led Saint-Louis to give orders for the 
erection of a chapel in which the relics were to be preserved, 
and he commanded Peter of Montereau to build it, which 
Peter did very speedily, as the King laid the first stone in 
1245, and the edifice was consecrated in April, 1248. 

' Some say that the crown of thorns was purchased from John of 
Brienne, the Emperor, and the piece of the true cross from Baldwin II., 
his successor; others say that both were purchased from Baldwin II. 
The cost to Saint-Louis, including the reliquaries, is said to have been 
two millions of livres. So far as the King's happiness was concerned, the 
money could not have been better spent. 

59 



6o PARIS 

There are two chapels, a low one on the ground-floor and 
a lofty one above it ; so both were consecrated simultane- 
ously by different prelates, the upper one being dedicated to 
the Holy Crown and the Holy Cross, the other to the 
Virgin Alary. 

Considering the rapidity of the work done, it is remark- 
able that it should be, as it is, of exceptionally excellent 
quality, considered simply with reference to handicraft and to 
the materials employed. The stone is all hard and carefully 
selected, while each course is fixed with clamp-irons imbed- 
ded in lead, and the fitting of the stones, according to 
Viollet-le-Duc, is " cFufie precision rare." 

Like Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle has undergone 
thorough and careful restoration in the present century. For 
those who blame such restorations indiscriminately, I will give 
a short description of the state of the building when it was 
placed in the restorer's hands. It had been despoiled at the 
Revolution and was used as a magazine for law-papers. The 
spire had been totally destroyed, the roof was in bad repair, 
sculpture injured or removed, the internal decoration 
mostly effaced, the stained glass removed from the lower 
part of the windows to a height of three feet, and the rest 
patched with fragments regardless of subject. The chapel 
was an unvalued survival of the past, falling rapidly into com- 
plete decay, and is surrounded by the modern buildings of the 
law courts, so its isolation made total destruction probable. 
There had been a time when the Sainte-Chapelle had been 
in more congenial company. The delightfully fanciful 



S AINTE-CHAPELLE 6 1 

and picturesque old Cour des Comptes had been built under 
Louis XII. (1504), on the southwest side, and there was the 
great Gothic Cour de Mai, and, finally, the Great Hall on 
the north. Not only that, but there was the Tresor des 
Chartes, attached to the south side of the Sainte-Chapelle, 
itself a treasure, almost a miniature of the glorious chapel, 
with its own little apse and windows, and high pitched 
roof. All these treasures of architecture were gone forever, 
replaced by dull, prosaic building ; the Sainte-Chapelle 
served no purpose that any dry attic would not have served 
equally well, and there seemed to be no reason why it 
should not be destroyed like the rest. The decision was 
to restore it, and give it a special destination where the law- 
yers might hear the mass of the Holy Ghost. The work 
was done thoroughly and carefully by learned and accom- 
plished men. M. Lassus designed a new spire,^ an exquis- 
itely beautiful work of art, much more elegant than its 
predecessor. Still to appreciate the new spire properly, one 
needs an architectural drawing on a large scale, like that in 
the monograph by Guilhermy. It is of oak, covered with 
lead, with two open arcades. There are pinnacles between 
the gables of the upper arcade, and on these pinnacles are 
eight angels with high, folded wings and trumpets. Near 
the roof are figures of the twelve apostles. All along the 
roof-ridge runs an open crest-work, and at the point over 

1 The spire by Lassus is the fourth. The first by Pierre de Montereau, 
became unsafe from old age; the second was burnt in 1630; the third 
was destroyed in the great Revolution. 



62 PARIS 

the apse stands an angel with a cross. All these things, 
judiciously enlivened by gilding, with the present high pitch 
of the roof, add greatly to the poetical impression, especially 
when seen in brilliant sunshine against an azure sky. 

Thanks to the restorers, the interior of the chapel once 
more produces the effect of harmonious splendour which 
belonged to it in the days of Saint-Louis. Of all the 
Gothic edifices I have ever visited, this one seems to me 
most pre-eminently a visible poem. It is hardly of this 
world, it hardly belongs to the dull realities of life. Most 
buildings are successful only in parts, so that we say to 
ourselves, " Ah, if all had been equal to that ! " or else we 
meet with some shocking incongruity that spoils everything ; 
but here the motive, which is that of perfect splendour, is 
maintained without flaw or failure anywhere. The archi- 
tect made his windows as large and lofty as he could (there 
is hardly any wall, its work being done by buttresses) ; and 
he took care that the stonework should be as light and ele- 
gant as possible, after which he filled it with a vast jewelry 
of painted glass. Every inch of wall is illuminated like a 
missal, and so delicately that some of the illuminations are 
repeated of the real size in Guilhermy's monograph. 
When we become somewhat accustomed to the universal 
splendour (which from the subdued light is by no means 
crude or painful), we begin to perceive that the windows 
are full of little pictorial compositions ; and if we have time 
to examine them, there is occupation for us, as the windows 
contain more than a thousand of these pictures. Thanks 



SAINTE-CHAPELLE 63 

to the care of M. Guilhermy, they have been set in order 
again. The most interesting among them, for us, on ac- 
count of the authenticity of the historical details, is the 
window which illustrates the translation of the relics. 
Here we have the men of the time of Saint-Louis on land 
and sea. In the other windows the Old and New Testa- 
ments are illustrated. Genesis takes ninety-one composi- 
tions. Exodus a hundred and twenty-one, and so on, each 
window having its own history.^ 

There are four broad windows in each side, though from 
the exterior two of these look slightly narrower because 
they are somewhat masked by the west turrets. The apse 
is lighted by five narrower windows, and there are two, the 
narrowest of all, which separate the apse from the nave. 

In the time of Henri II. a very mistaken project was 
carried into execution. A marble screen, with altars set up 
against it, was built across the body of the chapel so as to 
divide it, up to a certain height, into two parts. Happily, 
this exists no longer. 

The original intention of Louis IX. when he built the 
Sainte-Chapelle, was that the upper chapel should be re- 

' The only thing in the Sainte-Chapelle which can be considered any 
degree incongruous with the unity of the first design is the rose-window 
at the west end, which was erected by Charles VIII., near the close of the 
Fifteenth Century. The flamboyant tracery is of a restless character, all 
in very strong curves, and the glass is quite different from the gorgeous 
jewel-mosaics of the time of Saint-Louis. The subjects are all from the 
Apocalypse. However, this window inflicts little injury on the general 
effect of the chapel, as the visitor is under it when he enters, and is iso- 
lated from the rest. In service time everybody has his back to it. 



64 PARIS 

served for the sovereign and the royal house, while the 
lower one was for the officers of inferior degree. The 
king's chapel was on a level with his apartments in the 
palace, so that he walked to it without using stairs. The 
lower chapel has now been completely decorated like the 
upper one, on the principles of illumination. It is beautiful, 
but comparatively heavy and crypt-like, and the decoration 
looks more crude, perhaps because the vault is so much 
lower and nearer the eye. A curious detail may be men- 
tioned in connection with the religious services in the 
Sainte-Chapelle. They were of a sumptuous description, 
as the " treasurer," who was the chief priest, wore the 
mitre and ring, had pontifical rank, and was subject only 
to the Pope. He was assisted in the services by one 
chanter, twelve canons, nineteen chaplains, and thirteen 
clerks. When Saint-Louis dwelt in his royal house close 
by and came to the Sainte-Chapelle, the place must have 
presented such a concentration of mediaeval splendour as 
was never seen elsewhere in such narrow limits. His en- 
thusiasm may seem superstitious to us, but he endeavoured 
earnestly to make himself a perfect king according to the 
lights of his time, so that his splendid chapel is associated 
with the memory of a human soul as sound and honest as 
its handicrafts, as beautiful as its art. 




THE CATHEDRAL OF XOTRE-DAME, 




THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 

VICTOR HUGO 

OST certainly, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame 
is still a sublime and majestic edifice. But, 
despite the beauty which it preserves in its 
old age, it would be impossible not to be indignant at the 
injuries and mutilations which Time and man have jointly 
inflicted upon the venerable structure without respect for 
Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, and Philippe Auguste, 
who laid its last. 

There is always a scar beside a wrinkle on the face of 
this aged queen of our cathedrals. Tempus edax homo 
edacior^ which I should translate thus : Time is blind, 
man is stupid. 

If we had leisure to examine one by one, with the 
reader, the various traces of destruction imprinted on the 
old church. Time's work would prove to be less destruc- 
tive than men's, especially des hommes de Part^ because there 
have been some individuals in the last two centuries who 
considered themselves architects. 

First, to cite several striking examples, assuredly there 
are few more beautiful pages in architecture than that 
facade, exhibiting the three deeply-dug porches with their 
pointed arches ; the plinth, embroidered and indented with 
twenty-eight royal niches ; the immense central rose- 

65 



66 PARIS 

window, flanked by its two lateral windows, like the priest 
by his deacon and sub-deacon; the high and frail gallery 
of open-worked arches, supporting on its delicate columns 
a heavy platform ; and, lastly, the two dark and massive 
towers, with their slated pent-houses. These harmonious 
parts of a magnificent whole, superimposed in five gigantic 
stages, and presenting, with their innumerable details of 
statuary, sculpture, and carving, an overwhelming yet not 
perplexing mass, combine in producing a calm grandeur. 
It is a vast symphony in stone, so to speak ; the colossal 
work of man and of a nation, as united and as complex as 
the Iliad and the romanceros of which it is the sister; a pro- 
digious production to which all the forces of an epoch con- 
tributed, and from every stone of which springs forth in a 
hundred ways the workman's fancy directed by the artist's 
genius; in one word, a kind of human creation, as strong 
and fecund as the divine creation from which it seems to 
have stolen the twofold character : variety and eternity. 

And what I say here of the facade, must be said of the 
entire Cathedral ; and what I say of the Cathedral of Paris, 
must be said of all the Mediae\^l Christian churches. 
Everything in this art, which proceeds from itself, is so 
logical and well-proportioned that to measure the toe of 
the foot is to measure the giant. 

Let us return to the facade of Notre-Dame, as it exists 
to-day when we go reverently to admire the solemn and 
mighty Cathedral, which, according to the old chroniclers, 
was terrifying : quce mole sua terror em incutit spectantibus. 



CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 67 

That facade now lacks three important things : first, the 
flight of eleven steps, which raised it above the level of the 
ground ; then, the lower row of statues which occupied the 
niches of the three porches ; and the upper row ^ of the 
twenty-eight ancient kings of France which ornamented 
the gallery of the first story, beginning with Childebert and 
ending with Philippe Auguste, holding in his hand " la pomme 
imperiale." 

Time in its slow and unchecked progress, raising the 
level of the city's soil, buried the steps; but whilst the 
pavement of Paris like a rising tide has engulfed one 
by one the eleven steps which added to the majestic 
height of the edifice. Time has given to the church more, 
perhaps, than it has stolen, for it is Time that has spread 
that sombre hue of centuries on the facade which makes 
the old age of buildings their period of beauty. 

But who has thrown down those two rows of statues ? 
Who has left the niches empty ? Who has cut that new 
and bastard arch in the beautiful middle of the central 
porch ? Who has dared to frame that tasteless and heavy 
wooden door carved a la Louis XV. near Biscornette's 
arabesques ? The men, the architects, the artists of our 
day. 

And when we enter the edifice, who has overthrown 
that colossal Saint Christopher, proverbial among statues as 
the grand' salle du Palais among halls, or thejleche of Stras- 

' The outside of Notre-Dame has been restored since Victor Hugo 
wrote his famous romance. — E. S. 



68 PARIS 

burg among steeples ? And those myriads of statues that 
peopled all the spaces between the columns of the nave and 
choir, kneeling, standing, on horseback, men, women, chil- 
dren, kings, bishops, gens d* amies in stone, wood, marble, 
gold, silver, copper, and even wax, — who has brutally 
swept them away ? It was not Time ! 

And who has substituted for the old Gothic altar, splen- 
didly overladen with shrines and reliquaries, that heavy 
marble sarcophagus with its angels' heads and clouds, which 
seems to be a sample from the Val-de-Grace or the Inva- 
lides ? Who has so stupidly imbedded that heavy stone 
anachronism in Hercanduc's Carlovingian pavement ? Is 
it not Louis XIV. fulfilling the vow of Louis XIII. ? 

And who has put cold white glass in the place of those 
richly-coloured panes, which made the astonished gaze of 
our ancestors pause between the rose of the great porch 
and the pointed arches of the apsis ? What would an under- 
chorister of the Sixteenth Century say if he could see the 
beautiful yellow plaster with which our vandal archbishops 
have daubed their Cathedral ? He would remember that 
this was the colour with which the executioner brushed the 
houses of traitors ; he would remember the Hotel du Petit- 
Bourbon, all besmeared thus with yellow, on account of the 
treason of the Constable, " yellow of such good quality," 
says Sauval, " and so well laid on that more than a century 
has scarcely caused its colour to fade ; " and, imagining 
that the holy place had become infamous, he would flee 
from it. 



CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 69 

And if we ascend the Cathedral without stopping to 
notice the thousand barbarities of all kinds, what has been 
done with that charming little bell-tower, which stood over 
the point of intersection of the transept, and which, neither 
less frail nor less bold than its neighbour, the steeple of the 
Sainte-Chapelle (also destroyed), shot up into the sky, sharp, 
harmonious, and open-worked, higher than the other 
towers ? It was amputated by an architect of good taste 
(1787), who thought it sufficient to cover the wound with 
that large piaster of lead, which looks like the lid of a pot. 

This is the way the wonderful art of the Middle Ages 
has been treated in all countries, particularly in France. In 
this ruin we may distinguish three separate agencies, which 
have aifected it in different degrees ; first. Time which has 
insensibly chipped it, here and there, and discoloured its 
entire surface ; next, revolutions, both political and religious, 
which, being blind and furious by nature, rushed wildly 
upon it, stripped it of its rich garb of sculptures and carv- 
ings, shattered its tracery, broke its garlands of arabesques 
and its figurines, and threw down its statues, sometimes on 
account of their mitres, sometimes on account of their 
crowns; and, finally, the fashions, which, ever since the 
anarchistic and splendid innovations of the Renaissance, 
have been constantly growing more grotesque and foolish, 
and have succeeded in bringing about the decadence of 
architecture. The fashions have indeed done more harm 
than the revolutions. They have cut it to the quick ; they 
have attacked the framework of art ; they have cut, hacked, 



70 PARIS 

and mutilated the form of the building as well as its symbol ; 
its logic as well as its beauty. And then they have re- 
stored, a presumption of which time and revolutions were, 
at least, guiltless. In the name of good taste they have in- 
solently covered the wounds of Gothic architecture with 
their paltry gew-gaws of a day, their marble ribbons, their 
metal pompons, a veritable leprosy of oval ornaments, 
volutes, spirals, draperies, garlands, fringes, flames of stone, 
clouds of bronze, over-fat Cupids, and bloated cherubim, 
which begin to eat into the face of art in Catherine de 
Medicis's oratory, and kill it, writhing and grinning in the 
boudoir of the Dubarry, two centuries later. 

Therefore, in summing up the points to which I have 
called attention, three kinds of ravages disfigure Gothic 
architecture to-day : wrinkles and warts on the epidermis 
— these are the work of Time ; wounds, bruises and 
fractures, — these are the work of revolutions from Luther 
to Mirabeau ; mutilations, amputations, dislocations of 
members, restorations^ — these are the Greek and Roman 
work of professors, according to Vitruvius and Vignole. 
That magnificent art which the Vandals produced, acad- 
emies have murdered. To the ravages of centuries and 
revolutions, which devastated at least with impartiality and 
grandeur, were added those of a host of school architects, 
patented and sworn, who debased everything with the 
choice and discernment of bad taste ; and who substituted 
the chicories of Louis XV. for the Gothic lacework for the 
greater glory of the Parthenon. It is the ass's kick to the 



CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 71 

dying lion. It is the old oak crowning itself with leaves 
for the reward of being bitten, gnawed, and devoured by 
caterpillars. 

How far this is from the period when Robert Cenalis, 
comparing Notre-Dame de Paris with the famous Temple 
of Diana at Ephesus, so highly extolled by the ancient 
heathen, which has immortalized Erostratus, found the 
Gaulois cathedral '■'■plus excellente en longueur ^ largeur^ 
hauteur^ et structure." 

Notre-Dame de Paris is not, however, what may be 
called a finished, defined, classified monument. It is not 
a Roman church, neither is it a Gothic church. This 
edifice is not a type. Notre-Dame has not, like the Abbey 
of Tournus, the solemn and massive squareness, the round 
and large vault, the glacial nudity, and the majestic sim- 
plicity of those buildings which have the circular arch for 
their generative principle. It is not, like the Cathedral of 
Bourges, the magnificent product of light, multiform, tufted, 
bristling, efflorescent Gothic. It is out of the question to 
class it in that ancient family of gloomy, mysterious, low 
churches, which seem crushed by the circular arch ; almost 
Egyptian in their ceiling; quite hieroglyphic, sacerdotal, 
and symbolic, charged in their ornaments with more 
lozenges and zigzags than flowers, more flowers than 
animals, more animals than human figures ; the work of 
the bishop more than the architect, the first transformation 
of the art, fully impressed with theocratic and military 
discipline, which takes its root in the Bas-Empire, and 



72 PARIS 

ends with William the Conqueror. It is also out of the 
question to place our Cathedral in that other family of 
churches, tall, aerial, rich in windows and sculpture, sharp 
in form, bold of mien ; communales and bourgeois^ like polit- 
ical symbols ; free, capricious, unbridled, like works of art ; 
the second transformation of architecture, no longer hiero- 
glyphic, immutable, and sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive, 
and popular, which begins with the return from the Cru- 
sades and ends with Louis XI. Notre-Dame de Paris is 
not pure Rorfian, like the former, nor is it pure Arabian, 
like the latter. 

It is an edifice of the transition. The Saxon architect 
had set up the first pillars of the nave when the Crusaders 
introduced the pointed arch, which enthroned itself like a 
conqueror upon those broad Roman capitals designed to 
support circular arches. On the pointed arch, thenceforth 
mistress of all styles, the rest of the church was built. In- 
experienced and timid at the beginning, it soon broadens 
and expands, but does not yet dare to shoot up into steeples 
and pinnacles, as it has since done in so many marvellous 
cathedrals. You might say that it feels the influence of its 
neighbours, the heavy Roman pillars. 

Moreover, these edifices of the transition from the 
Roman to the Gothic are not less valuable for study than 
pure types. They express a nuance of the art which would 
be lost but for them. This is the engrafting of the pointed 
upon the circular arch. 

Notre-Dame de Paris is a particularly curious specimen 



CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 73 

of this variety. Every face and every stone of the vener- 
able structure is a page not only of the history of the coun- 
try, but also of art and science. Therefore to glance here 
only at the principal details, while the little Porte Rouge 
attains almost to the limits of the Gothic delicacy of the 
Fifteenth Century, the pillars of the nave, on account of 
their bulk and heaviness, carry you back to the date of the 
Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres, you w^ould 
believe that there were six centuries between that doorway 
and those pillars. It is not only the hermetics who find in 
the symbols of the large porch a satisfactory compendium 
of their science, of which the church of Saint-Jacques de 
la Boucherie was so complete an hieroglyphic. Thus the 
Roman Abbey, the philosophical church, the Gothic art, 
the Saxon art, the heavy, round pillar, which reminds you 
of Gregory VIL, the hermetic symbols by which Nicholas 
Flamel heralded Luther, papal unity and schism, Saint- 
Germain des Pres and Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie ; 
all are melted, combined, amalgamated in Notre-Dame. 
This central and generatrix church is a sort of chimasra 
among the old churches of Paris ; it has the head of one, 
the limbs of another, the body of another, — something from 
each of them. 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 

riCTOR HUGO 



A 



FTER a long climb up the dark spiral steps that 
perpendicularly pierce the thick wall of the towers, 
at length we suddenly emerge upon one of the 
high platforms flooded with light and air; it is a beautiful 
picture that unrolls on every side under our eyes. 

The Paris of the Fifteenth Century was already a giant 
city. Since then, it has certainly lost more in beauty than 
it has gained in size. As we know, Paris was born in that 
ancient He de la Cite which is shaped like a cradle. The 
strand of that isle was its first boundary and the Seine was 
its moat. For several centuries, Paris remained in the con- 
dition of an island, with two bridges, one on the north ^nd 
the other on the south, and two bridge-heads, that were its 
gates and its fortresses at the same time : the Grand- 
Chatelet on the right bank and the Petit-Chatelet on the 
left bank. Then, with its first race of kings, being too 
much confined in its island, Paris crossed the water. Then, 
beyond the great and the little Chatelet, a first ring of walls 
and towers began to invade the country on both sides' of the 
Seine. In the last century a few vestiges of this ancient 
enclosure still remained : to-day there is only the memory 
and a tradition here and there, the Porte Baudets, or 
Baudoyer, (Porta Bagauda). Little by little, the flood of 

74 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 75 

houses, constantly pushed outwards from the heart of the 
city, overflows, consumes, uses up and effaces this circuit. 
Philippe Auguste makes a new embankment for it. He 
imprisons Paris in a circular chain of great, high, and solid 
towers. For more than a century, the houses crowd to- 
gether, accumulate and raise their level in this basin, like 
water in a reservoir. They begin to deepen; they pile 
story upon story; they mount one upon another; they 
spout upwards like all compressed sap, and each tries to 
raise its head above its neighbours to obtain a little air. The 
streets narrow and stuff themselves till they are ready to 
burst, and every square fills up and disappears. Finally, the 
houses jump over the wall of Philippe Auguste and joyously 
disperse over the plain in confusion and disorder like 
truants. There they sit proudly, making gardens for them- 
selves among the fields, and take their ease. In 1367, the 
city expands in the faubourg so much that a new enclosure 
is necessary : this is built by Charles V. But a city like 
Paris is in perpetual growth. That is the only kind of city 
that becomes a capital. It is a kind of funnel into which 
descend all the geographical, political, moral and intellectual 
slopes of a country, and all the natural declivities of a 
people ; wells of civilization, so to speak, as well as sewers, 
in which commerce, industry, intelligence and population, 
everything that is sap, everything that is life, and every- 
thing that is the soul of a nation, ceaselessly filters and col- 
lects, drop by drop, century by century. The circuit of 
Charles V. then, meets the fate of the circuit of Philippe 



76 PARIS 

Auguste. At the end of the Fifteenth Century it is passed 
with long strides, and the faubourg runs farther away. In 
the Sixteenth, it seems that it recedes from sight and is 
swallowed up more and more in the old city, so greatly 
docs the new city fill up outside. Thus, if we halt at the 
Fifteenth Century, Paris had already used up the three con- 
centric circles of walls which, from the time of Julian the 
Apostate, so to speak, have their germ in the Grand- 
Chatelet and the Petit-Chatelet. The mighty city had suc- 
cessively cracked its four circuits of wall like a growing 
child that bursts its clothes of last year. Under Louis XL, 
in places, in the sea of houses were to be seen some ruined 
groups of towers of the ancient circuits rising like the tops 
of hills in an undulation, or like archipelagoes of the old 
submerged under the new Paris. 

Since that day, Paris, unfortunately for our eyes, has been 
transformed ; but it has only crossed one more circuit, that 
of Louis XV., that miserable wall of mud and rubble, 
worthy of the king who built it, worthy of the poet who 
sang of it : 

^' Le mur inurant Paris rend Paris mur rnurant." 
In the Fifteenth Century, Paris was still divided into 
three distinct and separate cities, each having its own 
physiognomy, its own individuality, its own manners, cus- 
toms, privileges, and history : the Cite, the Universite and 
the Ville. The Cite, which occupied the island, was the 
most ancient, the smallest, and the mother of the two 
others, pressed in between them like a little old woman be- 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 77 

tween her two big daughters-in-law. The Universite 
covered the left bank of the Seine from the Tournelle to 
the Tour de Nesle, points which in the Paris of to-day cor- 
respond to the Halle aux Vins and the Monnaie: Its 
limits generally coincided with that portion of country in 
which Julian had built his baths. The mount of Sainte- 
Genevieve was contained in it. The culminating point of 
this curve of walls was the Papal Gate, that is to say the 
present site of the Pantheon. The Ville, which was the 
largest of the three portions of Paris, occupied the right 
bank. Its quay, although broken and interrupted in various 
places, ran along the Seine from the Tour de Billy to the 
Tour du Bois, that is to say the spot where the Tuileries 
now stands. These four points where the Seine cuts the 
circuit of the capitol, La Tournelle and the Tour de Nesle 
on the left, the Tour de Billy and the Tour du Bois on the 
right, were called in particular the four towers of Pariso 
The Ville extended farther into the country than the 
Universite. 

The culminating point of the enclosure of the Ville 
(that of Charles V.) was at the partes Saint-Denis and 
Saint-Martin, the site of which has not altered. 

As we have just said, each of these great divisions of 
Paris was a city, but a city entirely too special to be com- 
plete, a city which could not do without the other two. 
Thus there were three perfectly separate aspects. The 
Cite abounded with churches, the Ville with palaces, and 
the Universite with colleges. In the chaos of cummunal. 



78 PARIS 

jurisdictions the isle belonged to the Bishop, the right 
bank to the provost of the merchants, and the left bank to the 
Recteur. The provost of Paris, a royal and not municipal 
officer, was over all The Cite possessed Notre-Dame ; 
the Ville, the Louvre and the H6tel-de-Ville ; while the 
Universite possessed La Sorbunne. The Ville had the 
Hallos i the Cite, the Hotel-Dieuj and the Universite, the 
Pre aux Clercs. The misdemeanours committed by the schol- 
ars on the left bank were judged in the He, in the Palais de 
Justice, and were punished on the right bank, at Montfau- 
con ; unless the Recteur^ feeling the Universite strong 
and the king weak, intervened ; for it was one of the 
privileges of the scholars to be hanged in their own ter- 
ritory. 

In the Fifteenth Century, the Seine washed five islands 
in enclosed Paris. The Cite possessed five bridges. The 
Universite had six gates, built by Philippe Auguste; be- 
ginning with La Tournelle, these were the porta Saint- 
Victor, Bordelle, Papale, Saint-Jacques, Saint-Michel and 
Saint-Germain. The Ville had six gates, built by Charles 
V. ; beginning with the Tour de Billy, these were the 
portes Saint-Antoine, du Temple, Saint-Martin, Saint- 
Denis, Montmartre, and Saint-Honore. All these gates 
were strong and beautiful in addition, which is not hurtful 
to strength. A moat, broad, deep and with a swift current 
during the winter floods, washed the feet of the walls all 
around Paris ; the water was supplied by the Seine. The 
gates were closed at night, the river was barred at both 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 79 

ends of the city with great iron chains, and Paris slept in 
tranquillity. 

From a bird's-eye view, these three bourgs, the Cite, the 
Universite and the Ville, present to the eye an inextricable 
network of strangely confused streets. Nevertheless, at 
the first glance one recognized that these three fragments 
of city formed a single body. One immediately noticed 
two long parallel streets, without a break or a change, and 
almost in a straight line, which at the same time crossed 
the three cities from one end to the other, from south to 
north, perpendicularly to the Seine, binding and mingling 
them and infusing and pouring ceaselessly the people of 
one within the walls of the other and making only one out 
of the three. The first of these two streets ran from the 
Porte Saint-Jacques to the Porte Saint-Martin ; it was called 
the Rue Saint-Jacques in the Universite, the Rue de la 
Juiverie in the Cite, and the Rue Saint-Martin in the Ville ; 
it crossed the water twice under the names of Petit-Pont 
and Pont Notre-Dame. The second, that was called the 
Rue de la Harpe on the left bank, the Rue de la Barillerie 
in the He, the Rue Saint-Denis on the right bank, the Pont 
Saint-Michel over one arm of the Seine, and the Pont-au- 
Change over the other, ran from the Porte Saint-Michel in 
the Universite to the Porte Saint-Denis in the Ville. As 
for the rest, under so many various names, they were ever 
only two streets, but two mother streets, the two generative 
streets, the arteries of Paris. 

Independently of these two principal streets, diametrical 



8o PARIS 

and piercing Paris in various parts of its breadth, common 
to the entire capital, the Ville and the Universite each had 
their own particular great street which ran lengthways, 
parallel to the Seine and on the way cutting the two arterial 
streets at a right angle. Thus, in the Ville, one went in a 
straight line from the Porte Saint-Antoine to the Porte Saint- 
Honore ; in the Universite, from the Porte Saint-Victor to 
the Porte Saint-Germaine. These two great ways, crossed 
with the first two, formed the canvas upon which rested, 
knotted and tangled, the Daedalian network of the streets 
of Paris. 

Now what kind of aspect did all this present when seen 
from the summit of the towers of Notre-Dame in 1482? 

For the spectator who arrived out of breath, it was first 
a dazzle of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, squares, tur- 
rets and clock-towers. Everything engaged the eyes at 
once, the carved gables, the sharp roof, the turrets sus- 
pended at the angles of the walls, the pyramid of stone of 
the Eleventh Century, the slate obelisk of the Fifteenth, 
the round and bare tower of the donjon, the square and 
embroidered tower of the church, the big, the little, the 
massive and the aerial. The eyes lost themselves long in 
all the depth of this labyrinth in which there was nothing 
that had not its originality, its reason, its genius and its 
beauty, nothing that did not spring from art, from the 
smallest house with its painted and carved front, with ex- 
terior woodwork, elliptical doorway, and with floors pro- 
jecting over one another, to the royal Louvre that at that 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 81 

day had a colonnade of towers. But when the eye began 
to grow accustomed to this tumult of edifices, the principal 
masses that it distinguished were as follows : 

First for the Cite. We have just explained that in the 
Fifteenth Century this ship was moored to the two banks 
of the river by five bridges. The form of a vessel had 
struck the heraldic scribes, for it is from this, and not from 
the siege by the Normans that came, according to Favyn 
and Pasquier, the ship that is blazoned on the old shield of 
Paris. The Cite, then, first presents itself to the eye with 
its poop to the east and its prow to the west. Turning to- 
wards the prow, one had before one an innumerable collec- 
tion of old roofs over which broadly loomed the leaden 
apsis of the Sainte-Chapelle, resembling the back of an 
elephant laden with his castle. Only this tower was the 
boldest spire, and covered more with carpentry and carved- 
work than any that had ever permitted the sky to show 
through its denticulated cone. In front of Notre-Dame, 
three streets disgorged into the parvis, a fine square of old 
houses. Over the southern side of this square, leaned the 
wrinkled and grim facade of the Hotel-Dieu and its roof 
that seemed covered with pustules and warts. Then, to 
the right, to the left, to the east, and to the west, in this 
close of the Cite that was yet so narrow, arose the belfries 
of its twenty-one churches of every date, of every form, 
and of every size, from the low and worm-eaten Roman 
campanile of Saint-Denis du-Pas {career Glaucinf) to the 
fine needles of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs and Saint-Landry. 



82 PARIS 

Behind Notre-Dame to the north, ran the cloisters with 
their Gothic galleries ; and to the east, the deserted point 
of the Terrain. In this mass of houses, the eye could still 
distinguish by those high stone mitres, pierced and open to 
the day, that then even on the roof crowned the highest 
windows of the palace, the hotel given by the city, under 
Charles VI., to Juvenal des Ursins ; somewhat farther 
away, the tarred sheds of the Palus market ; in still another 
direction, the new apsis of Saint-Germain-le-Vieux, length- 
ened in 1458 with an end of the Rue aux Febves ; and 
then, in places, crossroads thronged with people; a pillory 
set up at a corner of the street ; a fine piece of the paving 
of Philippe Auguste, a magnificent tiling ridged for the 
horses' hoofs in the middle of the street and so badly re- 
placed in the Sixteenth Century by the miserable pebble- 
work called pave de la Ligue ; a deserted rear courtyard 
with one of those open stairway turrets such as they made 
in the Fifteenth Century and one of which may still be 
seen in the Rue des Bourdonnais. Lastly, to the right of 
the Sainte-Chapelle, towards the west, the Palais de Justice 
pitched its group of towers at the edge of the water. The 
lofty trees of the king's gardens, which covered the western 
point of the Cite, masked the islet of the Passeur. As for 
the water, from the height of the towers of Notre-Dame 
one could scarcely see it on either side of the Cite, — the 
Seine disappeared under the bridges, and the bridges under 
the houses. 

And when the eye passed beyond those bridges whose 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 83 

roofs assumed a green tone, having grown mouldy before 
their time from the vapours of the w^ater, if it was directed 
to the left towards the Universite, the first edifice that it 
struck was a great and low cluster of towers, the Petit- 
Chatelet, the yawning gateway of which swallowed up the 
end of the Petit-Pont ; then, if your glance ran along the 
banks from east to west, there was a long cordon of houses 
with carved joists, coloured windows, rising with jutting 
stories one over another above the pavement, an intermi- 
nable zigzag of bourgeois gable-ends, frequently cut by the 
mouth of a street, and from time to time also by the front 
or the elbow of a great stone mansion sitting proudly at its 
ease, courts and gardens, wings and main buildings, among 
this populace of crowded and curtailed houses, like a great 
lord in a crowd of peasants. There were five or six of 
these hotels along the quay, from that of Lorraine, which 
shared the great neighbouring enclosure of La Tournelle 
with the Bernardins, to the Hotel de Nesle, whose princi- 
pal tower bounded Paris, and whose pointed roofs were 
in a position to slope their black triangles towards the 
scarlet disk of the setting sun during three months of the 
year. 

For the rest, this side of the Seine was the less mercan- 
tile of the two ; the scholars made more of a noise and 
throng there than the artisans, and, properly speaking, 
there was no quay except the Pont Saint-Michel at the 
Tour de Nesle. The remainder of the margin of the 
Seine was sometimes a bare strand, as it was beyond the 



84 PARIS 

Bernardins, and sometimes a pile of houses that stood with 
their feet in the water, as was the case between the two 
bridges. 

There was a great hubbub of washerwomen ; they 
shouted and chatted and sang from morning till evening 
along the bank, and beat the linen heavily, as in our day. 
This was not the least gaiety in Paris. The Universite 
formed a block to the eye. From one end to the other it 
was entirely homogeneous and compact. Those thousand 
roofs, thick-set, angular, clinging together, and almost all 
composed of the same geometrical element, seen from 
above, presented the aspect of a crystallization of the same 
substance. The capricious ravine of the streets did not 
cut up this mass of buildings into too greatly-disappropor- 
tioned slices. The forty-two colleges were distributed 
among them in a fairly equal manner, there were some 
everywhere. The varied amusing summits of these fine 
edifices were the product of the same art as were the simple 
roofs that overtopped, and were really only a multiplication 
in square or cube of the same geometrical figure. They 
therefore complicated the whole without disturbing it, and 
completed without changing it. 

Several fine hotels, here and there, jutted out with splen- 
did effect over the picturesque granaries of the left bank j 
the logis de Nevers, de Rome and de Reims, which have 
disappeared ; the Hotel de Cluny, which still exists for the 
consolation of the artist and whose tower has been so stu- 
pidly discrowned. Near Cluny, that Roman palace, with 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 85 

fine elliptical arches, was the baths of Julian. There 
were also many abbeys of a more devout beauty and a 
graver grandeur than the hotels, but not less beautiful, nor 
less great. Those that first arrested the eye were the Ber- 
nardins with their three bell-towers; Sainte-Genevieve, 
whose square tower, which still exists, makes us greatly re- 
gret the rest ; the Sorbonne, half college half monastery, so 
admirable a nave of which still exists ; the beautiful quad- 
rilateral cloisters of the Mathurins ; their neighbours, the 
cloisters of Saint-Benoit ; the Cordeliers, with their three 
enormous gables in juxtaposition; the Augustins, whose 
graceful needle, after the Tour de Nesle, made the second 
indentation on this side of Paris, starting from the west. 
The colleges, which in fact are the intermediate ring of the 
cloisters in the world, held the middle position between the 
hotels and the abbeys in the monumental series, with a 
severity full of elegance, a sculpture less giddy than the 
palaces, and an architecture less serious than the monastic 
buildings. Unhappily, almost nothing remains of these 
monuments in which Gothic art intersected wealth and 
economy with such precision. The churches (and they 
were numerous and splendid in the Universite ; and there 
also they appeared in grades of all the ages of architecture, 
from the open arches of Saint- Julien to the ogives of Saint- 
Severin), dominated the whole ; and, like one harmony the 
more in this mass of harmonies, they pierced every instant 
the multiple indentation of gables with slashed pinnacles, 
open belfries, and slender needles, whose lines, moreover. 



86 PARIS 

were nothing more than a magnificent exaggeration of 
the sharp angles of the roofs. 

The ground of the Universite was hilly. Mount Sainte- 
Genevieve in the southeast formed an enormous swelling; 
and it was something worth seeing from the top of Notre- 
Dame, this maze of narrow and tortuous streets (to-day the 
Latin country), these clusters of houses which, spreading 
in every direction from the summit of that eminence, pre- 
cipitated themselves in disorder and almost perpendicularly 
down its slopes to the edge of the water, some seeming to 
be falling down and others to be climbing up again, while 
all seemed to be holding on to one another. A continual 
stream of thousands of black points, crossing and recross- 
ing each other on the pavements, made everything in mo- 
tion under one's eyes. This was the populace seen thus 
from above and from a distance. 

Lastly, in the breaks of these roofs, spires, and irregu- 
larities of the innumerable buildings, that bent, twisted and 
indented so strangely the extreme lines of the Universite, 
here and there could be seen a thick stretch of mossy wall, 
a big round tower, or a crenellated city-gate, showing the 
fortress : this was the enclosure of Philippe Auguste. Be- 
yond were the verdant meadows and the receding roads, 
along which straggled a few additional houses of the fau- 
bourg, scarcer as the distance increased. Several of these 
faubourgs possessed some importance : first, starting from 
La Tournelle, came the bourg Saint-Victor, with its bridge 
of one arch over the Bievre ; its abbey, where might be 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 87 

read the epitaph of Louis le Gros, and its church with an 
octagonal spire flanked by four belfries of the Eleventh 
Century (a similar one may be seen at Etampes ; it has not 
yet been pulled down) j then the bourg Saint-Marceau, 
which already possessed three churches and a convent ; 
then, leaving the mill of the Gobelins and its four white 
walls to the left, came the faubourg Saint-Jacques with its 
fine sculptured cross at the cross-roads; the church of 
Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, which then was Gothic, pointed 
and charming ; Saint-Magloire, a fine nave of the Four- 
teenth Century, which Napoleon turned into a hay-barn j 
and Notre-Dame des Champs, in which there were Byzan- 
tine mosaics. Finally, after having left in the open field 
the monastery of the Chartreux, a rich edifice contempo- 
rary with the Palais de Justice, with its little gardens ar- 
ranged in compartments, and the ill-haunted ruins of Vau- 
vert, in the west, the eye fell upon the three Roman spires 
of Saint-Germain des Pres. The bourg Saint-Germain, 
already a large commune, lay behind with its fifteen or 
twenty streets ; the sharp belfry of Saint-Sulpice marked 
one corner of the bourg. To one side, were seen the 
quadrilateral enclosure of the Saint-Germain fair, where 
the market stands to-day ; then the abbe's pillory, a pretty 
little round tower well capped with a leaden cone ; the tile- 
works were farther away, and the Rue du Four, which led 
to the manor-kiln, and the mill on its knoll, and the pest- 
house, a little house isolated. But what especially attracted 
the eye and fixed it for a long time on this point was the 



88 PARIS 

abbey itself. It is certain that this monastery that had a 
grand appearance, both as a church and a lordship, this 
abbey-palace, in which the bishops of Paris esteemed them- 
selves happy to sleep for a night, this refectory to which 
the architect had given the air, the beauty, and splendid 
rose-window of the cathedral, this elegant chapel of the 
Virgin, this monumental dormitory, these vast gardens, this 
portcullis, this drawbridge, this circuit of battlemented walls 
which to the eyes notched the verdure of the surrounding 
meadows, these courtyards in which glittered men-at-arms 
in golden copes, the whole grouped and rallied around the 
three open-arched spires, finely set on a Gothic apsis, made 
a magnificent figure on the horizon. 

When at length, after gazing long at the Universite, you 
turned towards the right bank, towards the Ville, the spec- 
tacle suffered a brusque change of character. The Ville, 
while much larger than the Uni\ersite, was, in fact, less of 
a unity. At the first aspect, it was seen to separate itself 
into several singularly distinct masses. First, in the east, 
in that part of the city which to-day receives its name from 
the morass where Camulogenus got Caesar stuck in the mire, 
there was a pile of palaces. It extended to the edge of the 
water. Four almost adjoining palaces, Jouy, Sens, Barbeau, 
and the Queen's abode, mirrored their slated tops, cut with 
slender turrets, in the Seine. These four edifices filled the 
space from the Rue des Nonaindieres to the Abbey of the 
Celestins, the spire of which gracefully relieved the line of 
gables and battlements, A few greenish huts leaning ovef 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 89 

the water in front of these sumptuous hotels did not inter- 
fere with the view of the beautiful angles of their facades, 
their wide windows squared and crossed with stone, their 
ogival porches surcharged with statues, the sharp edges of 
their cleanly-cut walls, and all those charming architectural 
surprises that give Gothic art the air of recommencing its 
combinations with every monument. Behind these palaces, 
ran in all directions, sometimes cloven, palisaded and 
crenellated like a citadel, sometimes veiled with great trees 
like an isolated country-house, the immense and multiform 
enclosure of that miraculous Hotel de Saint-Pol, in which 
the King of France was able superbly to lodge twenty-two 
princes of the quality of the Dauphin and the Duke of 
Burgundy, with their servants and suites, without counting 
the great lords, and the Emperor when he came to see Paris, 
and the lions, which had their separate hotel in the royal 
abode. 

From the tower on which we have stationed ourselves, 
the Hotel de Saint-Pol, nearly half concealed by the four great 
abodes of which we have just spoken, was still very con- 
siderable and very wonderful to the view. One could 
easily distinguish, although skillfully consolidated with the 
principal building by long galleries with windows and col- 
umns, the three hotels that Charles V. had amalgamated 
with his palace; the Hotel du Petit-Muce, with the lace- 
work balustrade that gracefully hemmed its roof j the hotel 
of the Abbe of Saint-Maur, having the relief of a strong 
castle, a big tower, machicolation, loopholes, iron bastions, 



90 PARIS 

and, over the wide Saxon gateway, the abbe's escutcheon 
between the two grooves of the drawbridge ; the hotel of 
the Comte d'£tampes, the donjon of which, in ruins at the 
top, looked round and notched like the comb of a cock ; 
here and there three or four ancient oaks formed a clump 
like enormous cauliflowers; swans sported in the clear 
waters of the fish-ponds streaked with light and shadow, 
and many courtyards with picturesque corners came into 
view ; the Hotel des Lions, with its low arches on short 
Saxon pillars, its iron portcullis and its perpetual roaring ; 
through all this gleamed the scaly spire of the Ave Maria; 
to the left was the abode of the Provost of Paris, flanked 
with four slender open-worked turrets ; in the central back- 
ground was the Hotel Saint-Pol, properly so-called, with 
its multiple facades, its successive enrichments since the 
time of Charles V., the hybrid excrescences with which 
architects had loaded it for two centuries, with all the 
apses of its chapels, all the gables of its galleries, a thou- 
sand vanes to the four winds, and its two lofty contiguous 
towers whose conical roofs, with battlements surrounding 
their bases, looked like peaked caps with turned-up brims. 

Continuing to mount the steps of the amphitheatre of 
palaces stretching away on the surface of the ground, after 
crossing a deep ravine dug in the roofs of the Ville, the 
eye arrived at the logis d' Angouleme, a vast construction 
of various periods, in which there were portions quite new 
and very white, which scarcely assimilated with the whole 
any better than a red patch in a blue pourpoint. Behind it, 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 91 

rose the forest of spires of the Palais des Tournelles. 
There was no sight in the world, either at Chambord or at the 
Alhambra, that was more magical, more aerial, or more en- 
chanting than this forest of spires, belfries, chimneys, vanes, 
spirals, screws, lanterns pierced by the daylight that seem 
to have been worked with a punch, pavilions and spindle- 
turrets, all varying in form, height, and attitude. One 
would have called it a gigantic set of chessmen. 

To the right of the Tournelles, that cluster of enormous 
towers of inky black, joining one another, and, so to speak, 
tied together with a circular moat, that donjon pierced with 
loopholes far more than with windows, that drawbridge 
always raised, and that portcullis always down, is the Bas- 
tille. Those species of black beaks that protrude between 
the battlements, and, that, from a distance, you would take 
for spouts, are cannons. 

Under their balls, at the foot of the formidable building, 
is the Porte Saint-Antoine sunk between its two towers. 
Beyond the Tournelles, as far as the wall of Charles V., 
with rich compartments of verdure and flowers, extended a 
velvet carpet of cultivated land and royal parks, in the 
midst of which, by its labyrinth of trees and alleys, one rec- 
ognized the famous Daedalian garden that Louis XI. had 
given to Coictier. The doctor's observatory rose above 
the maze like a great isolated column with a little house as 
a capitol. Terrible astrological doings took place in that 
little office. 

The Place Royale is situated there now. 



92 PARIS 

As we have said, the palace-quarter, of which we have 
tried to give some idea to the reader, although only pointing 
out the greatest palaces, filled the angle formed by the Seine 
and the enclosure of Charles V., on the east. The centre 
of the Ville was occupied by a mass of the houses of the 
common people. There, in fact, the three bridges of the 
Cite disgorged on the right bank, and bridges produce 
houses before palaces. This mass of common dwellings, 
crowded together like cells in a hive, had its own beauty. 
The Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, with their innu- 
merable ramifications, approached each other like two great 
trees that mingle their branches ; and then tortuous lines, 
the Rue de la Platrerie, de la Verrerie, de la Tixeranderie, 
etc., serpentined over all. There were also fine edifices 
that pierced the petrified undulations of this sea of gables. 
At the head of the Pont aux Changeurs, behind which 
could be seen the Seine foaming under the wheels of the 
Pont aux Meuniers, was the Chatelet, a feudal tower of the 
Thirteenth Century ; there was the rich square belfry of 
Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, with its corners all blunted 
with sculptures, already admirable, although it was not com- 
pleted in the Fifteenth Century. There was the Maison- 
aux-Piliers open towards the Place de Greve ; there was 
Saint-Gervais, that has since been spoiled by a doorway in 
good taste ; Sainte-Mery, whose ancient ogives were already 
almost full semicircles ; Saint-Jean, whose magnificent 
steeple was proverbial ; there were twenty other monu- 
ments that did not disdain to hide their marvels in this 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 93 

chaos of black, narrow, and deep streets. Add to these the 
crosses of carved stone, more plentiful at the cross-roads 
than gibbets ; the cemetery of the Innocents, the architec- 
tural circuit of which could be seen in the distance above 
the roofs 5 the pillory of the Halles, the top of which could 
be seen between two chimneys of the Rue de la Cosson- 
nerie; the steps of the Croix-du-Trahoir in its square that 
was always black with people ; the circular booths of the 
corn-exchange ; the fragments of the ancient enclosure of 
Philippe Auguste, that could be distinguished here and there 
among the houses, towers overrun with ivy, ruined gates 
and crumbling and deformed portions of wall j the quay 
with its thousand shops and sanguinary flaying-yards ; the 
Seine covered with boats, from the Port au Foin to For- 
I'Eveque, and you will have a confused image of what the 
central portion of the Ville was in 1482. 

With these two quarters, the one of palaces and the 
other of houses, the third element in the aspect offered by 
the Ville was a long belt of abbeys that bordered it almost 
throughout its circumference from east to west, and, behind 
the circuit of fortifications that shut in Paris, formed a 
second interior circuit of convents and chapels. Thus, 
immediately beside the Pare des Tournelles, between the 
Rue Saint-Antoine and the old Rue du Temple, there was 
Sainte-Catherine with its immense space and a cultivation 
which was limited only by the wall of Paris. Between the 
old and new Rue du Temple, there was the Temple, a 
sinister cluster of towers, lofty, upright and isolated, in the 



94 PARIS 

centre of a vast battlemented enclosure. Between the Rue 
Neuve du Temple and the Rue Saint-Martin, was the 
abbey of Saint-Martin, amid its gardens, a superb fortified 
church, the girdle of whose towers and tiara of whose bel- 
fries only yielded in power and splendour to Saint-Germain 
des Pres. Between the two streets of Saint-Martin and 
Saint-Denis was the close of La Trinite. Then, between 
the Rue Saint-Denis and the Rue Montorgueil was the 
Filles-Dieu. To one side, might be distinguished the rot- 
ting roofs and the unpaved enclosure of the Cour des Mir- 
acles. This was the sole profane link that mingled with 
this devout chain of convents. 

Lastly, the fourth compartment that outlined itself in the 
agglomeration of roofs on the right bank, and which oc- 
cupied the western angle of the enclosure and the edge of 
the water down-stream, was a new knot of palaces and 
hotels crowding at the foot of the Louvre. The old 
Louvre of Philippe Auguste, that immense edifice whose 
great tower rallied twenty-three mistress-towers around it, 
without counting the turrets, seemed from afar to be set in 
the Gothic tops of the hotels of Alen^on and Petit-Bour- 
bon. This hydra of towers, the guardian giant of Paris, 
with its twenty-four heads always raised, with its monstrous 
croups, leaded or scaled with slate, and gleaming with me- 
tallic reflections, ended the configuration of the Ville in the 
west with an astonishing effect. 

Outside the walls, several faubourgs crowded around the 
gates, but not so many as, and more scattered than, those 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 95 

of the Universite. Behind the Bastille, there were twenty 
round shanties about the curious sculptures of the Croix- 
Faubin and the flying buttresses of the abbey of the Saint- 
Antoine des Champs ; next came Popincourt, lost among 
the wheat-fields ; then La Courtille, a joyous village of 
wine-shops ; the bourg Saint-Laurent with its church, the 
belfry of which, seen from a distance, seemed to mingle 
with the pointed towers of the Porte Saint-Martin j the 
faubourg Saint-Denis, with the vast enclosure of Saint- 
Larde ; outside the Porte Montmartre, was the Grange- 
Bateliere, encircled with white walls j behind it, was Mont- 
martre with its chalky slopes, that had then almost as many 
churches as mills, and which has preserved only mills, for 
nowadays society only demands bread for the body. 
Finally, beyond the Louvre, in the meadows of the Fau- 
bourg Saint-Honore, at that day already quite considerable, 
one could see the extent and greenness of Petite-Bretagne 
and the Marche aux Pourceaux, in the midst of which 
stood the horrible vat for boiling false coiners. Between 
La Courtille and Saint-Laurent, your eye had already no- 
ticed, upon the crown of an elevation set in a desert plain, 
a kind of building that from a distance resembled a ruined 
colonnade standing on a base laid bare. This was neither 
a Parthenon nor a temple of Jupiter Olympus : it was 
Montfaucon. 

Now let us recapitulate the general aspect of ancient Paris 
in a few words. In the centre, the He de la Cite, in form 
resembling an enormous tortoise putting forth its bridges. 



96 PARIS 

scaly with tiles, like claws from beneath its gray shell of 
roofs. To the left, the monolithic trapezium, strong, 
dense, and bristly, of the Universite ; to the right, the vast 
semicircle of the Ville, much more mixed up with gardens 
and monuments. 

The three portions. Cite, Universite and Ville were 
veined with innumerable streets. Crossing the whole was 
the Seine, obstructed with islands, bridges and boats. All 
around was an immense plain, cut up with thousands of 
kinds of cultivation and dotted with beautiful villages. To 
the left, were Issy, Vanves, Vaugirard, Montrouge, and 
Gentilly with its round and its square tower, etc.; to the 
right, twenty others, from Conflans to Ville-l' Eveque. 
On the horizon, was a hem of hills disposed in a circle like 
the rim of a basin. Finally, in the distance to the east, was 
Vincennes and its seven quadrilateral towers ; to the south, 
Bicetre and its pointed turrets ; to the north, Saint-Denis 
and its spire ; to the west, Saint-Cloud and its donjon. 
There is the Paris that was seen from the top of the towers 
of Notre-Dame by the ravens that lived in 1482. 




A GLANCE AT PARIS ABOUT 1844 

HONORE DE BALZAC 

"HO is the Parisian, stranger, or provincial visi- 
tor, that has not noticed, though only two 
days in Paris, the black walls flanked by 
three large pepper-box towers, two of which almost join, — 
the sombre and mysterious ornament of the Quai des 
Lunettes ? This quay begins at the bottom of the Pont-au- 
Change and extends to the Pont-Neuf. A square tower 
called the Tour de I'Horloge, from which the signal for the 
massacre of Saint-Bartholomew was given, a tower almost 
as high as that of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, indicates the 
palace and forms the corner of the quay. These four 
towers and these walls are clothed with that blackish hue 
that all north facades gain in Paris. Towards the middle 
of the quay, at a deserted arcade, begin the private con- 
structions which the establishment of the Pont-Neuf oc- 
casioned in the reign of Henri IV. The Place Royale was 
a replica of the Place Dauphine. It has the same system 
of architecture of brick squared with cut stone. This 
arcade and the Rue de Harlay indicate the limits of the 
palace to the west. Formerly the Prefecture de Police and 
the hotel of the first presidents of Parliament were depend- 
encies of the palace. The Cour des Comptes, and the 

97 



98 PARIS 

Cour des Aides completed the supreme court of justice, — 
that of the sovereign. 

This square, this island of houses and buildings, where is 
to be found the Sainte-Chapelle, the most magnificent 
jewel of Saint-Louis, is the sanctuary of Paris; it is the 
most sacred spot, the holy ark. At first this space was the 
entire first city, for the site of the Place Dauphine was a 
meadow dependent on the royal domain where was a mill 
for coining money. From this arose the name of Rue de 
la Monnaie given to the street that leads to Pont-Neuf. 
From that came also the name of one of the three round 
towers, the second, which is called the Tour d'Argent, 
which would seem to prove that money was struck there. 
The famous mill, seen in the old plans of Paris, was in all 
probability of later date than when money was coined in 
the palace itself, and, doubtless was due to an improvement 
in the art of coining money. The first tower, almost 
coupled with the Tour d'Argent, is called the Tour de 
Montmorency. The third, the smallest, but the best pre- 
served of the three, for it still retains its battlements, is 
named Tour Bonbec. The Sainte-Chapelle and its four 
towers (including the Tour de I'Horloge,) perfectly defines 
the enclosure, the perimeter, as an employe of the Cadastre 
would say, of the palace from the Merovingians to the first 
House of Valois ; but for us, and in consequence of its 
transformations, this palace most especially recalls the epoch 
of Saint-Louis. 

Charles V. was the first to abandon the palace to the 



A GLANCE AT PARIS ABOUT 1844 99 

Parliament, a newly-created institution, and went, under 
the protection of the Bastille, to inhabit the famous Hotel 
Saint-Pol, to which the Palais des Tournelles was added 
afterward. Then, under the last of the Valois, royalty 
returned from the Bastille to the Louvre, which had been its 
first bastille. The first dwelling of the kings of France, Saint- 
Louis's palace, which had kept the simple name of Palais to 
signify the palace par excellence^ is entirely buried under the 
Palais de Justice, and forms its cellars, for it was built in 
the Seine, like the cathedral, and built so carefully that the 
highest tides of the river hardly covered the first steps. 
The Quai de 1' Horloge covers about twenty feet of these 
thousand-year-old buildings. Carriages roll by on a level 
with the capitals of the strong columns of these three 
towers, the elevation of which formerly must have been in 
harmony with the elegance of the palace and had a pictur- 
esque effect from the water, since to-day these towers still 
dispute height with the tallest monuments in Paris. When 
we contemplate this vast capital from the top of the lantern 
of the Pantheon, the Palais with the Sainte-Chapelle still 
appears the most monumental of all the buildings. This 
palace of kings, over which you walk when you traverse 
the immense Salle des Pas-Perdus, is a marvel of architec- 
ture, and is so still to the intelligent eyes of the poet who 
comes to study it while examining the Conciergerie. Alas ! 
the Conciergerie has invaded the palace of the kings. One's 
heart bleeds to see how jails, cells, corridors, apartments, 
and halls without light or air have been cut into this mag- 



loo PARIS 

nificent composition in which Byzantine, Roman, and 
Gothic, the three orders of ancient art, have been 
unified in the architecture of the Twelfth Century. This 
palace is to the monumental history of the France of the 
first period what the Chateau de Blois is to the monumental 
history of the second period. Just as at Blois you can ad- 
mire in the same court the chateau of the Comtes de Blois, 
that of Louis XII., that of Francois I., and that of Gaston, 
so at the Conciergerie you will find in the same enclosure 
the character of the early races, and in the Sainte-Chapelle 
the architecture of Saint-Louis. 



The Left Bank 



1 




FLOWER ^rARKET. 



FLOWERS IN PARIS 

ALPHONSE KARR 

FROM its origin, Paris seems to have been pre- 
destined for the capital of the civilized world. 
Julian says that Paris was surrounded with 
pleasant gardens full of fruits and flowers. 

We have letters patent of Clovis dated in the month of 
October in the year 500 of the Christian Era, in which he 
says: 

'' Paris is a brilliant queen over other cities ; a royal city, 
the seat and head of the empire of the Gauls. With 
Paris safe, the realm has nothing to fear," 

Paris was encircled with woods and gardens, the 
memory of which is still preserved by various names of 
streets and faubourgs, such as la Courtille^ la Culture- 
Sainte- Catherine^ etc.^ etc. 

The church that Clovis caused to be built near Sainte- 
Genevieve (a church first dedicated by him to Saint Peter 
and Saint Paul) was surrounded by vast gardens. 

His son, Childebert, formed a magnificent garden around 

the Palais des Thermes, says a contemporary, completely 

planted with roses and every other kind of flowers, as well 

as fruit-trees that this prince grafted himself. The queen, 

Ultrogothe, was passionately fond of flowers. 

103 



104 PARIS 

Charlemagne took so much pleasure in his gardens that 
he had one around each of his houses in the various 
provinces. 

He often occupies himself with his gardens in his 
Capitularies^ with great solicitude. " I desire," he says, 
" that there may be always in my gardens an abundance of 
lilies, roses, sage, rosemary, poppies, etc." 

Hugues Capet had two gardens in one of the islands called 
r lU-atix-TreilUs. Louis le Jeune, in 1160, gave to the 
chaplain of the chapel of Saint-Nicholas " six hogsheads 
of wine to take from these vineries." 

This garden occupied the place, where, in 1606, the Rue 
Harlay, the Place Dauphine and the quays were con- 
structed, and, in 167 1, the court of the Palais and the Rue 
la Moignon. 

Philippe Auguste had three gardens, one of which was 
called the King's garden, and another the Queen's garden. 

Charles V., who caused the Hotel Saint-Paul to be built, 
laid out there immense gardens celebrated for the beauty 
of their trellis-work and cherry-trees, whence come the 
names of the streets that take their place : Beautreillis and 
la Cerisaye. 

Under Francis I., appeared formal beds, grass-plots, and 
the taste for rare flovvers. 

In all ages the Parisians have loved flowers and gardens. 
A Trait'e de la Police^ published in 1799, complains of the 
obstinacy of the people in keeping gardens suspended over 
their windows. " Even those of the lower orders," says 



FLOWERS IN PARIS 105 

the author, " who have no inheritances to plant make gar- 
dens for themselves in pots and boxes, being unable without 
great trouble and disquiet to do without them entirely." 
He adds : " The magistrates vainly oppose these gardens 
at the windows. After many ordinances prohibiting them, 
and many condemnations of prevaricators, no success was 
gained in preventing them, so strong is this affection for 
gardens which prevails even in the minds of the most 
indigent over their reason and their own interests." 

Under Louis XIV., Le Notre and La Quintinie were 
appointed councillors-directors of gardens, and Le Notre 
received the collar of the order of Saint-Michel. 

We find a multitude of ordinances of the kings of 
France relative to the gardens and gardeners of the city of 
Paris. 

Among others, there is a singular privilege for the osiers 
grown in the gardens of Saint-Marcel. The ordinance 
dates from 1473 and commences thus : " It is ordered and 
enjoined that nobody shall be so bold as to sell any other 
osiers that are grown elsewhere than in Saint-Marcel, 
etc." 

An ordinance of Henri III., in December, 1576, calls the 
gardeners his " beloved master-gardeners of the good city 
of Paris." 

The gardeners at that period formed a corporation hav- 
ing severe laws. The candidates had to undergo examina- 
tions for a baccalaureate. 

" Art. XVII. — It is forbidden that any gardener shall be 



io6 PARIS 

so bold, upon pain of prison and forty sols fine, to under- 
take any work at more than five sols Parisis^ unless he is a 
master or bachelor. 

"Art. XVIII. — Let none be so daring or bold as to un- 
dertake any task above five sols unless he is capable of 
doing good work and a masterpiece, and on a level with 
the duty of the sworn master-gardeners. 

"Art. XIX. — And since it has come to the knowledge of 
justice that various persons calling themselves master-gar- 
deners and bachelors, etc." 

The master-gardeners paid heavy imposts to the state. 
The author of the Traite de la Police says : " The wars 
which the late King Louis XIV. had to sustain against the 
great number of enemies obliged him to have recourse to 
various extraordinary means to meet the expenditures, etc." 

In fact, if the people had not contributed money for the 
expenses of the war, how would the authorities have been 
able to take their children out to be killed there \ 

Ah ! who will deliver the so-called civilized nations from 
these harvesters of laurels, gatherers of palms, and heroes 
brought up to homicide from their earliest infancy ? 

Under Louis XIV. the gardens also had their wigs. 
There is nothing so ugly or so ridiculous as those garden- 
beds cut up with sand of various colours and those trees 
subjected to forms that are most contrary to their nature. 

At the present moment, on the table on which I am 
writing I have before my eyes a book printed at the end of 
the reign of Louis XIV. 



FLOWERS IN PARIS 107 

THE GARDENER FLORIST. 

Universal cultivation offtowers^ trees, etc., together with the 
manner of making all kinds of beds, porticos, columns and other 
pieces, etc. 

Here the author boldly cries : " We may say that the in- 
dustry of our gardeners has never reached such a high point 
as to-day ; " to judge of this we have only to look at the 
various figures they devised for elms. 

" Art surpasses nature," he adds, " in these edifices and 
porticos of verdure, etc." And he gives figures of elms 
forming from the base of their trunk upward " a kind of 
large pot without a handle whence issues the stem of the 
elm terminated by a perfectly round head ; " then he shows 
the image of a portico, then some yews cut into vases and 
animal forms, and he again cries : "Is there anything more 
beautiful or anything that reveals more grandeur ? " 

There were few flowers in the gardens of that day ; the 
author makes a great boast of the eight kinds of roses that 
he owns ; we may judge of the poverty of the gardens by 
the important place occupied in them by the sweet basil, 
better known to-day among the common people by the 
name of oranger de savetier. 

The princes of the blood and the peers of France made 
presents of flowers to the parliament of Paris; this was a 
fine, a homage that they rendered to the justice of the 
country to which they declared themselves in submission. 
It was called la haill'ee des roses. 

Unfortunately, it was not long before this ceremony was 



io8 PARIS 

performed with artificial flowers, and there was a " manufac- 
turer of roses " for the parliament. 

Under Louis XV. the odour of blossoms was preferred to 
manufactured perfumes, which had already been in fashion 
in the time of Queen Catherine de Medicis and her three 
sons, civet, castoreum, musk, and ambergris. This taste 
came from Italy, where flowers are so liberally cultivated, 
so richly coloured and so odorous. People took pleasure 
in anointing themselves with various excrements of species 
of rats, beavers, goats and whales ; for civet, castoreum, 
musk and ambergris are nothing else. 

In all ages flowers have been mixed up with politics, and 
not very felicitously. In the name of heaven be content 
with tigers, leopards, hawks, and as many headed eagles and 
other savage animals as you please for your escutcheons and 
coats-of-arms, but leave the flowers in peace ! 

Under the restoration of the Bourbons, the celebrated 
actress, Mile. Mars, was hissed and insulted for appearing 
on the stage with a bunch of violets. This brought about 
duels and public clamour. At that moment one might 
have applied to a portion of the Parisians what Aristoph- 
anes said of the Athenians : " Call them Athenaioi iosteph- 
anoi (crowned with violets), and they are no longer joyful." 

Anne of Austria could not endure either the sight or the 
scent of a rose : there is no need to mention that it was 
proscribed at court, talis rex^ talis grex. Gretry, the author 
of the Tableau parlant^ and la Caravane^ etc., had the same 
repugnance. 



FLOWERS IN PARIS 109 

Louis XIV. liked strongly-scented flowers, he wanted 
an orange-tree in every room in his palace. Madame de 
Sevigne speaks of an entertainment given by the " Grand 
Roi" in which there were a thpusand crowns' worth of 
jonquils. 

Marie Antoinette was very fond of flowers ; she prob- 
ably owed the last agreeable sensation of her life to them. 

Shut up in a damp and pestiferous chamber of the Con- 
ciergerie, her only clothing was an old black dress and 
stockings which she took off, remaining bare-legged while 
she washed them herself. I do not know if I should have 
liked Marie Antoinette, but how can one help worshipping 
such great misery ? 

A brave woman, Madame Richard, keeper of the prison, 
took great happiness in making presents to her whom she 
was not allowed to address otherwise than as Widow Capet. 
Every day, and not without danger, she brought her a 
bunch of the flowers she loved : pinks, tuberoses, and espe- 
cially rockets, her favourite flower. Madame Richard was 
denounced and imprisoned. In a recently-discovered letter 
of Marie Antoinette's we learn that one of the circum- 
stances that most cruelly offended her in that miserable 
" affair of the necklace " was the audacity of the Cardinal de 
Rohan in saying or believing that he had " offered a rose " 
to the queen and that she had accepted it. *' What ! A 
man supposing that he had had a rendezvous with the 
Queen of France the daughter of his King ! That the 
Queen had accepted a rose from him ! I certainly did not 



no PARIS 

deserve that insult ! " (Letter from Marie Antoinette to 
the Archduchess Marie-Christine.) 

Later, another woman who had also sat upon the throne, 
Josephine, in retirement at Malmaison, sought consolation 
in flowers. With the assistance of an intelligent gardener 
named Dupont, she collected every species and variety of 
rose known in France, England, Belgium and Holland. 
Dupont produced various new kinds and increased the cat- 
alogue of roses. We owe a part of the roses we possess 
to the Empress Josephine. That is a crown that I prefer 
to her husband's crown of laurels. 

Another flower that plays a part in the history of Paris 
is the hawthorn, that pure and sweet adornment of the 
hedges. "On August 24th, 1572, King Charles IX. 
allowed the Huguenots who were in Paris to be slain 
by the Parisians, and the other towns that followed the 
example of Paris put to death those among them who 
were of that religion. This blood-letting, although some- 
what cruel, prevented a great inflammation." This 
reference to the St. Bartholomew is to be found in a 
book printed at Paris in MDCXLVI., with the privilege 
of the king, Louis XIV., then eight years of age, and 
already represented by a crown of laurels in the book of 
which I speak because the Due d'Enghien had captured 
Thionville and because the Marechal de Gassion had 
captured Gravelines : which was called the king's triumph 
of arms. 

Now then, on the day of St. Bartholomew the rumour 



FLOWERS IN PARIS iii 

spread that a stump of hawthorn that had been thought 
dead had suddenly burst into leaves and blossoms. 

This was a text for the preachers of the day to say very 
fine things and prove how greatly pleasing to God this 
massacre and hecatomb of men had been. 

The fact is reported by de Thou who makes fun of the 
preachers. 

In the successive embellishments of Paris, window-gar- 
dens have been definitely prohibited. These gardens were 
a subject of contest which dates from a long way back be- 
tween the citizens and the police. On this subject, ordi- 
nances dated in the reign of Louis XIII., exist against 
these poor gardens, and Martial speaks of the garden that 
he himself had on his window-sill : 

" Rus est mihi in fenestra J' 

On depriving the Parisians of this pleasure and so 
greatly enlarging the city that all the neighbouring country 
finds itself crowded together and suppressed, it is due to 
them that they should have the squares, to which however 
an English name should not be given. This is almost the 
sole objection that I have to offer to this excellent idea. 

I had often thought of the destiny of those poor girls of 
the people who pass their whole life in the centre of the 
city in those infected and obscure quarters, never hearing 
the first words of love at their ear and in their heart except 
on the stairways reeking of boiled cabbage, or under the 
portes-cocheres that exhale an odour mingled of mud and 
adulterated wine. 



1 1 2 PARIS 

Thanks to these places planted with trees, to these pub- 
lic gardens established in each of the quarters, that is no 
longer the case. 

It is strange that Paris does not possess a flower-market 
convenient or simply covered over like the Holies. Why 
is there not a well-established Halle aux Fleurs like the 
Halle aux Legumes and the Halle aux Poissons ? 



REVERIE 

GEORGE SAND 

I KNOW of no city in the world where strolling rev- 
erie is more agreeable than in Paris. If the poor 
pedestrian through heat and cold meets innumerable 
tribulations there, it must also be confessed that in the fine 
days of spring and autumn, " if he knows his own happi- 
ness," he is a privileged mortal. For my part, I like to 
recognize that no vehicle, from the sumptuous equipage to 
the modest hack, can be compared, for sweet and smiling 
reverie, with the pleasure of making use of two good legs, 
on the asphalt or pavement, obeying the whim of their pro- 
prietor. Let him who will regret ancient Paris ; my intel- 
lectual faculties have never permitted me to know its de- 
tours^ although like so many others I have been brought up 
there. To-day, what great vistas, too straight for the artis- 
tic eye but eminently sure, allow us to go on for a long 
while with our hands in our pockets without going astray 
and without being forced every moment to consult the of- 
ficer at the corner or the affable grocer along the way. 

It is dangerous, I must confess, to be distrait in the 
centre of a large city which is not obliged to trouble itself 
about you when you do not condescend to take care of 
yourself. Paris is still far from finding a system of veri- 

"3 



114 PARIS 

table safety that would separate the locomotion of horses 
from that of human beings, and that would succeed in sup- 
pressing, without prejudicing business necessities, those 
hand-trucks of which I am inclined, in passing, to complain 
a little. 

I would dare to maintain that absent-minded people, for 
the hundred perils that they still run in Paris, benefit by 
the compensation of a hundred thousand real and intimate 
joys. 

Whosoever possesses this precious infirmity of pre-occu- 
pation will join me in saying that I am not maintaining a 
paradox. In the atmosphere, in the view, and in the sound 
of Paris there is I know not what personal influence that is 
not to be found elsewhere. Nowhere is the charm char- 
acteristic of the temperate climate more delightfully mani- 
fested with its moist air, its rose skies, moire or pearly 
with the most vivid and delicate tints, the brilliant windows 
of its shops lavish with motley colour, its river, neither 
too narrow nor too broad, the soft clearness of its reflec- 
tions, the easy gait of its population, active and lounging 
at the same time, its confused noises in which everything 
is harmonized, every sound, that of the water population as 
well as that of the city having its proportions and distribu- 
tions wonderfully fortuitous. At Bordeaux or at Rouen, 
the voices and movement of the river dominate everything, 
and one might say that its life is on the water : at Paris, 
life is everywhere ; therefore everything there seems more 
alive than elsewhere. 



REVERIE 1 15 

The new garden, arranged in dales and dotted with 
baskets of exotic flowers, is never anything more than the 
Petit Trianon of the classic decadence and the English 
garden of the beginning of the present century, perfected 
in the sense of multiplying the turns and accidental features 
in order to realize the aspect of natural landscape within a 
limited space. In our opinion, nothing is less justifiable 
than that title of landscape-garden which nowadays every 
bourgeois takes unto himself in his provincial town. Even 
in the more extensive spaces that Paris consecrates to this 
fiction, do not hope to find the charm of Nature. The 
smallest nook of the rocks of Fontainebleau, or of the 
wooded hill of Auvergne, the slenderest cascade of la 
Gargilesse, or the least known of the meanderings of the 
Indre has an aspect, a savour, a penetrating power alto- 
gether different from the most sumptuous compositions of 
our Parisian landscapists ! If you want to see the garden 
of the creation, do not go to the end of the world. There 
are ten thousand of them in France in spots where nobody 
is occupied and of which no one has any notion. Seek, 
and you will find ! 

But if you want to see the decorative garden par excellence^ 
you have it in Paris, and let us say at once that it is a rav- 
ishing invention. It is decoration and nothing else, make 
up your mind to that, but adorable and marvellous deco- 
ration. Science and taste have joined hands there ; make 
your reverence, it is a youthful household. 

The exotic vegetable worldj which has gradually revealed 



ii6 PARIS 

its treasures to us, is beginning to inundate us with its 
riches. Every year brings us a series of unknown plants, 
many of which doubtless have already enriched the herbals 
and troubled the notions of worried classifiers, but of whose 
aspect, colour, shape, and life we are ignorant. The many 
conservatories of the city of Paris possess a world of mar- 
vels which constantly grows and in which skillful and 
learned horticulturists may become initiated into the secrets 
of the preservation and reproduction proper to each species. 
Study has been given to the temperament of these poor 
exotics that perpetually vegetated in an artificial heat ; it 
has been discovered that some that were reputed delicate 
possess quite a rustic vigour, whilst others, more mysteri- 
ous, could not endure under our skies as severe cold as 
they patiently endured in their native earth. But, like an- 
imals, plants are susceptible of education, and I doubt not 
that the time will come when more than one that now has 
to be coaxed in order to live among us will come to pro- 
duce fruits or shoots gladly. 

We shall then have gratis before our eyes during every 
hour of the fine season, tropical forms, perhaps arborescent 
ferns that are already easy to transport under glass, not- 
withstanding their respectable age of several hundreds of 
centuries, splendid orchids, colossal latania-palms, shafts of 
vegetable columns whose age seems to mount to the age 
of the flowers of the coal-beds, sagitated leaves ten metres 
in length that look as if they had fallen from another 
planet, foliage of such brilliant colours as to eclipse that of 



REVERIE 117 

the flowers, graminacece resembling clouds more than herbs, 
mosses lovelier than the velvet of our looms, perfumes un- 
known to the combinations of industrial chemistry, and, 
finally, gigantic living plants placed within the reach of 
everybody. 

Let us halt here, let us dream a little, since having passed 
our first astonishment and expressed our first admiration, 
our imagination carries us into distant regions, into still 
desert isles, and into those unknown solitudes whence the 
courageous and enthusiastic naturalist has brought us these 
treasures at the peril of his life. With regard to perils, we 
must not speak only of the caprices of the sea, of the 
venom of the rattle-snakes, and of the hurtful appetite of 
savage animals and indigenous cannibals, certain of whom 
are fond of white flesh with tomato sauce; the plants 
themselves sometimes possess more prompt and direct means 
of defence ; witness the beautiful nettle that we have seen 
covered with a natural silvery, viscous lye that we may 
touch but that is provided beneath with purple-coloured hairs 
of which the slightest contact with the skin causes death. 

Be comforted ! It will not leave its glass prison. 

We therefore wander some thousands of leagues from 
the Pare Monceaux. The rich decoration that environs us 
cannot long keep up the illusion for us : too many diverse 
regions, too many countries differing greatly and far distant 
from one another have contributed to this ornamentation 
which presents itself as an artistic resume of creation. We 
necessarily fly from one to another on the wings of intui- 



ii8 PARIS 

tion, and, ashamed of the number of things of which we 
are still ignorant, we are seized with the desire to travel in 
order to learn, or to learn in order to travel with pleasure 
and fruitfulness. 

Shall we leave the decorative gardens without dreaming 
about the delightful hydraulic trifles that now play so great 
a 7-ole in our embellishments ? Clarified by the rapid mo- 
tion, the water is always a music and radiance, the charm 
of which art cannot shatter. 

I have seen naturalist-artists absolutely furious against 
these ruinous playthings that pretend to remind them of 
nature and that they treat as puerile and monstrous coun- 
terfeits. They said : " Let them bring us the rocky and 
verduous wells of Tivoli with their whirls of impetuous 
water, or let them give us back the blowing Tritons of 
Versailles, the hydraulic concerts of the gardens of Frascati, 
and all the rococo follies, rather than these false grottoes 
and lying cascades. It is falsifying all the notions of the 
true, all the laws of taste, and all the sentiment of a gen- 
eration that they pretend they are making artistic and 
learned ! " They were indignant, and we could not calm 
them. 

Shall we share their anger ? No ! Between the reality 
and the accepted, between art and nature, there is a medium 
necessary for the sedentary enjoyment of a large majority 
of people. What a number of poor citizens never have 
and never will see the picturesque sights of Spain, Switzer- 
land, and Italy, and the enchantments of one's own view 



REVERIE 119 

of the great features of mountain and forest, of lake and 
torrent, except through the fictions of our theatres and 
gardens ! It is impossible to provide them with real speci- 
mens ; we must limit ourselves to the copy of a detail, a 
nook, or an episode. I cannot bring you the ocean, be 
content with a reef and a wave. This detail would not 
gain in the least by having its already considerable pro- 
portions centupled in cost; it would not be more real. All 
that can be demanded of us is to make it pretty ; and, in 
this respect, our hydraulic playthings are without reproach. 
Formerly, they were much more costly, and transported us 
into a mythological world of marble or bronze which was 
not more successful in realizing the antique style or the 
poetry of the Grecian gardens and temples. They have 
long formed a separate style, entirely fanciful, which in- 
deed has its own charm, but which we must leave where it 
is. Apollo and his nymphs, Neptune and Amphitrite, have 
nothing more to say to us, unless they speak to us of 
Louis XIV., and his court. The thought of our epoch 
aims at making us love nature. Romanticism has disem- 
barrassed us of the fetiches that did not allow us to see her, 
to understand her and to love her for herself. What we 
want to teach our children is that grace is in the tree and 
not in the Hamadryad that formerly dwelt in it ; that the 
water is as beautiful on the rock as in the marble ; that the 
dreadful rock itself has its physiognomy, its colour, and 
its cherished plant, the wreathings of which make a won- 
derful tapestry for it; that the grotto-work has no need of 



120 PARIS 

symmetry and a clothing of shells : it is only a question of 
imitating, with a truth-loving skill, their natural dispositions 
and their monumental, easy, or fantastic poses. Later on, 
if our children see how real Nature works, they will only 
enjoy her the more, and they will remember the grottoes 
of Longchamp, Monceaux and the Buttes-Chaumont, as 
we recall with pleasure and tenderness the little frail plant 
that we cultivate in our window ; and that we see blowing 
strong and glorious in our country. 



'^'^%^^;^'4L 














V', 









>^? 







LEJARDIN DES PLANTES 

LOUIS ENAULT 

I HE foundation of the Jardin des Plantes goes back 
to the year 1626. 

At the solicitation of Herouard and Guy la 
Brosse, his physicians, Louis XIII. authorized the acquisi- 
tion of twenty-four arpents in the Rue Saint-Victor and 
conferred the superintendence of the garden upon the first 
physician to the King and his successors. La Brosse had 
a parterre made forty-one toises in length and thirty-five in 
breadth, and there he caused to be planted all the plants 
that he had been able to procure. The garden was opened 
to the public in 1650. Over the principal door was written 
"Jardin royale des herbes m'edicinales : chairs of botany and 
anatomy were soon attached to the establishment. In 1660 
Colbert founded a chair of the iconography of plants. 
Fagon, first physician to Louis XIV., at his own expense 
undertook the most active research in all provinces and 
presented to the garden a large number of new species. 
We already find a constellation of illustrious or recom- 
mendable men : Duverney, professor of anatomy ; GeofF- 
roy, chemistry ; Tournefort, botany ; Vaillant directs the 
cultivation and Antoine de Jussieu is sub-demonstrator. 
Fagon had the first hot-houses and the first amphitheatre 



122 PARIS 

constructed j he began the museum of osteology and tied 
the youthful America in bonds of knowledge, Tourne- 
fort enriched the garden with a collection of plants brought 
from the Levant, and Du Fay offered to the cabinet his 
fine collection of precious stones. 

Buff"on was nominated superintendent of the garden in 
1732. For the Jardin des Plantes this is the date of a new 
and glorious era. Buffbn enlarged the buildings, augmented 
the collections, embellished the gardens, added ground to 
them on all sides, reached the Seine and extended to the 
quay those two magnificent avenues of lime-trees that are 
still admired ; he had the large amphitheatre and the chem- 
ical laboratory built, and he himself drew up the plans 
that we admire to-day. But Buffbn's cares did not stop 
there: he obtained from the Academy of Sciences the 
cession of the Hunard collection of anatomy; from the 
King of Poland, a collection of minerals ; and from Cathe- 
rine of Russia, various objects of natural history and fine 
specimens of animals of the North. 

In 1792 Buffbn's successor was named Bernardin de 
Saint-Pierre. One loves to see that gentle and pure fame in 
the fresh haunt of lovely flowers and great trees : it was a 
good place in which to meditate on the Harmonies de la 
Nature. 

From its creation to our own day, the Jardin des Plantes 
has never ceased to increase, whether by free gifts or by 
onerous acquisitions, and it has thus become the most 
precious collection of its kind in the world. 



THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 

NEIL WTNN WILLIAMS 

TO seme people it will come as a surprise to hear 
that there are catacombs at Paris. 
The fame of the similar collection of human 
remains at Rome would appear to have dwarfed out of 
sight the wondrous quarries that stretch beneath the greater 
portion of Southern Paris. Nevertheless, the catacombs of 
the French capital are a wonderful and a weird sight, and 
one that is open to any member of the public who makes a 
written application to Monsieur le Prefet de la Seine. 
Their historical origin is interesting, and aptly exemplifies the 
changes that time brings in its train. From a remote past 
down to the Seventeenth Century they were merely quar- 
ries whence stone was drawn, and drawn to keep pace with 
the growth of the city above them. The natural conse- 
quence of this drain upon the vitals of the city's support 
was a subsidence, in 1774, which, by damaging property 
and bringing about numerous accidents, informed the pub- 
lic that some one must do something, or that nobody would 
be left to do anything. 

In 1777 a still stronger hint from below aroused the 
government to an activity, which expended its energy in 

supporting with piers and buttresses the most dangerous 

123 



124 PARIS 

portions of the affected area. These works, continued 
from year to year, proved a fertile source of expense. 

In 1784 the question arose as to the disposal of the relics 
of mortality which were to be removed from the disused 
,cemetery of the Innocents. 

It was suggested that the quarries should be still further 
strengthened and rendered compact by their adoption as 
catacombs. The suggestion met with approval, was 
adopted, and the transfer of the vast accumulation of bones 
entered upon with all due precautions. It was thus that 
the quarries became the garner-room of the Destroyer ; it 
was thus, as the various cemeteries within the city ceased 
to yawn for their dead, that they were made to yield up 
their silent tenants. 

In 1786 the catacombs were solemnly consecrated. At 
this period the bones and skulls were being cast down on 
the floors of the caverns and passages in great heaps, with- 
out any attempt at order or arrangement ; nor was it till 
the year 18 12 that the authorities commenced the work 
which has culminated in the present artistic presentment 
of that which once formed the framework of living thou- 
sands. 

Come ! we will descend together as two members of the 
public, and see a portion of this underground and silent 
world that extends its ramifications beneath two hundred 
acres of Paris. We are in possession of our "permits," 
and according to direction find ourselves at the principal 
entrance on the right of the Place Denfert-Rochereau. 



THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 125 

We take our places in the queue of those about to de- 
scend. We buy candles. An obliging stranger tears ofF a 
square piece from a newspaper and hands it to us with a 
polite bow. The careful, courteous man ! He explains to 
us that presently it will be useful, if only " les messieurs " 
will adopt this plan of catching the droppings of a flickering 
candle held in the bare hand ; and so saying he triumphantly 
thrusts his candle with a ripping, tearing noise through the 
paper. The idea is good, so good that it travels along the 
queue^ and each candle soon boasts a paper guard. One 
o'clock strikes. The door guarding the entrance to ninety 
steps that lead to below swings open. Its harsh grating is 
the signal for a brisk fusillade of match-firing reports. 
The matches are applied to the candles ; a strong odour of 
tallow seethes through the mellow sunshine, and through 
its sickly fumes we commence to slowly advance. Already 
the leading file has vanished within the doorway, and as 
we in turn approach the orifice a dull roar pours sullenly 
out to meet us. Tramp, tramp, tramp — we have passed 
beneath the archway, we are descending the spiral of the 
stone staircase. The air is heavy with the clangour of 
ponderous footfalls — murky with candle smoke that veils 
with weird effect the flickering, draught-driven light. As 
far, and just so far, as we can see above and below us, all 
is in movement ; dresses, coats, candles whirl slowly, un- 
certainly downward. The very walls seem to writhe in 
the uncertain light, to mutter and to moan with inarticulate 
voices. 



126 PARIS 

Down, down, down ! All are in the rock-home of 
Death. A moment's pause, a silence falls on the chatter- 
ing crowd. Then, affrighted with their second's fear, they 
sway onward through a rocky gallery. Rock on either 
side of them, rock above them ; here bare and arid, there 
slimy with oozing water and fowl growths. The passage 
broadens out, it narrows, and ever and ever there is the 
black line on the roof that marks the road. Suddenly a 
black shadow on the left or to the right. The eye plunges 
into the depths of these side roads, and recoils aghast at 
their mysterious gloom. The lights file on. A thin glitter 
seams a dark gap with a flickering, broken line of light. 
" Ah," says the guide. "Yes, a chain ! " 

Still, forward, the shadows to right and left grow in size ; 
some have a sentry silently guarding their obscurity from 
rash obtrusion ; where there is no sentry there is a chain. 

A sudden check from in front breaks the continuity of 
the forward movement. 

We move on again, and lo ! the rocks on either hand 
contract, change colour, break out into the gruesome de- 
sign of a symmetrically built wall of bones and skulls. 
From the level of our heads down to the level of our feet, 
skull rests upon skull, and leans back upon the myriad 
bones behind. The shivering candlelight falls with unequal 
rays upon the formal tiers; it flashes coldly upon the grin- 
ning teeth, penetrates the mortarless crannies of the wall, 
and ever shows bones of many shapes and curves. Now it 
lights up a rent in some skull — a ghastly, jagged wound 



THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 127 

which haunts one with the thought of foul murder. Anon, 
it shimmers with erratic play on the trickling water that, 
pursuing its silent way from year to year, has crusted with 
a smooth gloss the skull beneath. 

Again the crowd checks. In the moment's pause you 
approach the wall. An earth-stained skull, perhaps larger 
than its comrades, centres your attention on his sunken 
orbits. You brood over it, are drawn to it, and as in a 
dream lay hands on its smooth cranium. The cold, 
clammy contact ! Ah ! how different from the warmth of 
a loving friend. Yet perchance, this, this too, was once a 
friend, the load-stone of a deep, broad love. 

On again, once more, and this time quicker. The skulls 
flash past in confused lines. It is the dance of death. A 
rock shoots into view, bursts through the skulls. It is 
marked with black characters, which tell you that " it is 
sometimes better to die than to live." 

Rock and lettering fade back into darkness, but again 
and again the light outlines a phrase such as " Tombeau de 
la Revolution" " Tombeau des Victimes" or a motto that 
sinks deep into the soul. 

The designs in skull and bone become more complicated. 
The walls become more lofty, rush from straight lines 
into curves, assume the form of chapels. Around and 
about you are skulls, skulls, skulls. Once these residues 
of men were even as you and I are now. Think of it, 
each mouldering bone was once part of a life — a life ! But 
now, Tragedy and Comedy lie indifferently side by side. 



128 PARIS 

Riches and poverty, the great and the low, lie jaw by 
jaw. 

None too great, none too humble to enter into Death's 
lavish gift to the darkness that reigns in the catacombs. 
Their world has passed away, and the old order has given 
place to the new that now surges and seethes by their 
crumbling bones. They have been but a tide in the ocean 
of life, they have flowed and they have ebbed. 

But even as you dream or gibe, according to tempera- 
ment, in one of these chapels, a faint, prolonged rustle 
comes stealing to the ear, swells and falls, and vanishes 
mysteriously as it came. 

What was it ? The guide catches an inquiring eye, and 
explains, with a wealth of incisive gesture, that it is the 
rats moving. He makes the blood run cold with the hor- 
ror of his account of those who have been lost in the cata- 
combs and hunted to their death by the sharp-teethed 
rodents. 

He expatiates with pardonable pride on the precautions 
now taken by the authorities to guard against casualties of 
this nature, and sinks his voice to a whisper as he mentions 
the lost hundred of 187 1. He points to the dark, chain- 
barred passages as he tells you who and what these men 
were. 'Tis a tale that dwells in a blood-red past — a past 
which gave birth to the Commune of '71. The Germans 
had besieged Paris and taken it ; they had entered the city 
as conquerors, and with their departure the humiliated, su- 
persensitive city was to be further outraged by its own 



THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 129 

baser passions. The National Guard had been even during 
the siege disaffected toward the Government of the Repub- 
lic, and with the departure of the Germans, it saw in the 
weakness of the Government then located at Versailles its 
opportunity for revolt. Not having been disarmed, it pos- 
sessed a brute force which gave it courage to act — it carried 
off the cannon to the heights of Montmartre and Belleville, 
under the plausible excuse of preserving them from the 
enemy. 

This was, in effect, revolt ; and so President Thiers read 
it : He attempted the removal of the cannon on March, 
'71. He failed 5 and so commenced the insurrection of 
the Commune and a siege of Paris. 

A hundred thousand National Guards, together with the 
desperate characters common to every great city, were the 
thews and the sinews of this social revolution, which was 
directed against property and labour-masters. It was in- 
itiated by working men, but in its short life of two months 
it was to seek the power of the devil of cruelty, and to en- 
courage to the surface of Parisian life the petrokur and p'etro- 
leuse. It was to grow drunk with blood, and with sottish 
fury to fire the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the 
Tuileries, the Ministry of France ; it was to corrupt its 
own body with murderous excess, and to slay by day and 
by night. Within the restraining influence of the Repub- 
lican army concentrated at Versailles, it stung itself like a 
fire-imprisoned scorpion. 

But the debilitated Government at Versailles was re- 



130 PARIS 

cuperating ; it drew the siege closer, and hurled shot 
and shell faster and faster into the writhing city. It 
sent out its troops under Marshal MacMahon, and with 
bayonet and bullet it bore down the Communists, slew 
them without trial, without mercy, with no quarter for 
petroleur or p'etroleuse. Ten thousand corpses lay beneath 
its Victory ; the streets and prisons were red with blood ; 
the mark of the destroyer was on mansion and humblest of 
humble buildings. 

By the lurid light which the recollections of the Com- 
mune emit, the guide's answers to a bystander, that the lost 
hundred were insurgents and part of the garrison of Fort 
Vanves, becomes powerfully suggestive. And to here a 
question and there a question he makes reply, of how the 
insurgents fled before the Republican troops, on the fall of 
Fort Vanves. And how they had rushed away from the 
bayonets on their track to endeavour to seek safety in the 
silent gloom of the catacombs. 

His graphic words, intensified by the environment, re- 
construct the scene, paint it with the vivid colours of a 
nightmare to the eyeballs straining to the dark mouth of the 
passages beyond. In thought, he takes us with the panic- 
stricken soldiers into the labyrinth. We feel a feverish 
fear of pursuit driving us further into the secretive gloom. 
A halt — and our labouring hearts grow calmer amidst the 
silence that yields no shout, no muffled footfall of pursuer. 
But our torches consume faster and faster away ; we must 
again seek light of day. Yet how ! Everywhere, road 



THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 131 

across road, silent skull by silent skull, with never a clue to 
the open air, to the living world above. Again panic seizes 
us ; we run, run madly with many a stumble, for life. 
Exhaustion finds us alone. Our comrades gone. Our 
torch, guarded with trembling hand, burning low. We 
hear the rats gathering in their hordes outside the pale of 
kindly, merciful light. They throw down a skull that rolls 

heavily to our feet. The light 

Ah ! It must have been awful to have died in that thick 
blackness with never a ray of light or hope. And we grow 
thankful that, as two of the public, we move on and on to 
the exit at the Rue Dareau, and find there life and sun- 
shine. 



SAINT-6TIENNE DU MONT 

S. SOPHIA BEALE 

THE convent of Sainte-Genevieve was founded by 
Clovis, and so extensive were its lands and de- 
pendencies that ere long it drew to it a large 
population of workmen and labourers for the cultivation of 
its land. A priest, one of the monks of the abbey, was 
appointed to take spiritual charge of these people ; and 
from this commencement grew the parish of Saint-Etienne. 
Originally the congregation worshipped in the crypt of the 
abbey church. But at the beginning of the Thirteenth 
Century the congregation outgrew its chapel, and in 1224 
the Bishop of Paris authorized the building of a church by 
the side of the abbey, to be consecrated to the memory of 
Saint-£tienne, the proto-martvr. The reason for changing 
its name for the third time was probably the demolition of 
a church dedicated to Saint Stephen to make space for 
Notre-Dame. 

The first church lasted three hundred years, and then 
again, the population having increased enormously, Saint- 
Etienne was found to be too small for its congregation, and 
another and finer church was projected. In 149 1 it was 
deemed better to rebuild than to patch up and enlarge the 

church J but many years passed in projects and delays, and 

132 




SAINT-ETIENXE DU-MONT. 



SAINT-ETIENNE DU MONT 133 

it was only in 15 17 that the work was actually commenced. 
Abbot Philippe Lebel finished the choir in 1537, and in 
1 54 1 the Bishop Megare consecrated the altars in the name 
of the Bishop of Paris ; but that the church was not fin- 
ished in 1552, or even in 1563, diocesan permission to ap- 
ply the Lenten offerings to the work is sufficient proof. 
The jube was commenced in 1600, the porches nine years 
later, and the chapel of the Virgin (rebuilt) was only fin- 
ished in 166 1. It was Queen Marguerite de Valois, the 
lady who so strangely prances about Paris upon a white 
palfrey at dead of night in the much-admired controversial 
opera, who laid the first stone of the great portal in 1610; 
and, moreover, she gave a sum of three thousand livres to 
aid the work; but what was this when so much was 
wanted ? All was not complete until 162&, and meanwhile 
the alms during Lent was appropriated to the building fund. 
However, on the 25th of February, 1626, the church and 
the high altar were dedicated to the glory of God and of 
the Virgin Mary by the " reverendissime messire 'Jean- 
Francois de Gondi" archbishop of Paris. 

Saint-£tienne is a cruciform building, very much leaning 
to the right (as is common in old churches), with a nave, 
two aisles, and nineteen chapels. The transepts scarcely 
project beyond the nave. The exterior is a mass of ele- 
gant ornamentation, and on the north side, under the win- 
dows, is a passage which connects the porch of the second 
bay with the charnier^ a sort of a cloister, built at 
the end of the Lady Chapel, exterior to the church. The 



134 PARIS 

enclosure within this cloister was formerly the little burial- 
ground -y the great cemetery being situated in the square 
which fronts the church. 

There is something extremely coquettish and fascinating 
about the building, with its high-pitched roof, springing 
from a Renaissance facade, and its Fifteenth Century tower 
surmounted by a pepper-box lantern. 

The old church of the abbey, which completely joined 
Saint-£tienne, has been entirely swept away to make room 
for the Rue Clovis; but the refectory and the tower still 
form a part of the Lycee Henri IV., a little turret at the 
easternmost angle of Saint-£tienne indicating the extremity 
of the monastery's domains. 

The interior of Saint-£tienne is no less singular than the 
exterior. The side aisles are nearly as high as the nave, 
and have enormous windows. The shafts which support 
the vault of the nave are of great height, and the bays are 
of the same elevation as the side aisles. Above these bays 
is a clerstory, the windows of which are as broad as they 
are high, with depressed pointed arches. In order to 
diminish the enormous height of the bays, the architect 
conceived a curious device. At about one-third of the 
height of the shafts he has thrown a depressed arch from 
pillar to pillar, which forms an elevated passage round the 
church. It is arrested at the transepts, but taken up again 
round the choir. The passage encircling each pillar is just 
wide enough to enable a person to walk. These turnees^ as 
the old records call the gallery, and the splendid /a^^ form 



SAINT-ETIENNE DU MONT 135 

i 

a distinctive feature of the church. On the side of the 
nave the turn'ee has an open pilaster balustrade, and at the 
entrance of the choir it joins the jube. On each side of 
this spiral staircase leading up first to ih^ jube^ and then, a 
second flight to the choir gallery, the former being formed 
of a single flying-arch supported by two pilasters. The 
whole screen is ornamented with rich carving. 

When the Abbey of Port-Royal was destroyed in 17 10, 
the body of Racine was transferred to Saint-Etienne and 
placed in the crypt of the Lady Chapel by the side of 
Pascal; and in 1808 a Latin epitaph, composed by Boileau, 
which was discovered in the pavement of the church of 
Magny-les-Hameaux, was also transferred. Ten years 
later, on April 21st, 1818, a great function was held in 
honour of the poet and the author of those much-loved 
Pens'ees ; the Academy sent a deputation, and one of their 
members, the Abbe Sicard, officiated. 

Eustache Lesueur, the somewhat feeble painter of the 
Life of Saint-Bruno, was also buried at Saint-£tienne. 
Many other names adorn the list of those laid to rest in 
the churches or burial grounds of the parish ; Vigenere, 
secretary to Henri IIL, 1598; the surgeon, Thognet, 16423 
Antoine Lemaistre, and Lemaistre de Sacy, brought from 
Port Royal in 1710; the botanist, de Tournefort, 1708; 
Rollin, rector of the University, who died in 1741, in the 
Rue Neuve de Saint-£tienne du Mont, which was re- 
named after him. 

But it is the glass of Saint-Etienne which is perhaps its 



136 PARIS 

chief glory. Although a great deal has been destroyed and 
patched up, much remains which is quite worthy of study, 
being as it is, in the best style of the Sixteenth and Seven- 
teenth Centuries, and the work of Jean Cousin, Claude 
Henriet, d'Enguerrand Leprince, Pinaigrier, Michu, Fran- 
cois Periez, Nicolas Desengives, Nicolas Lavasseur, and 
Jean Mounier. But, unhappily, mendings and patchings 
have quite destroyed our power of discovering to which 
artist the different windows are due. 

The main attraction of Saint-£tienne is the tomb of 
Sainte-Genevieve. Long before the Pantheon ceased to be 
the church of the maid of Nantcrre, it was to Saint- 
£tienne that the faithful journeyed to pray for her interces- 
sion, and to have their belongings laid upon her coffin. Here, 
any day, but especially during the octave of hcv fcte^ you may 
see people bringing handkerchiefs, rosaries, crosses, towels, 
etc., to be placed in the shrine, in order to carry the Saint's 
blessing and help to the sick and the suffering at home. The 
stone coffin is said to have been found in the crypt of the 
abbey church during its demolition in 180 1, but whether it 
be the original one in which Sainte-Genevieve was buried 
in 511, it is impossible to say, as it is so surrounded by 
ornamental ironwork that its workmanship cannot be 
studied ; but the effect of the little chapel containing this 
tomheau^ with its lights and flowers and stained-glass, is 
very charming, and during the neuvaine^ when the church is 
ablaze with candles, and hundreds of people font queue to 
the shrine, it is a sight not easily forgotten. 














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THE QUARTIER LATIN 

THEODORE DE BANVILLE 

'HE Quartier Latin, a designation that everybody 
understands, although it is merely ideal, and does 
not correspond to any of the municipalities of 
Paris, comprises almost the whole of the fifth and sixth 
arrondissements ; it is a vast district vi^hich is bounded on 
the north by the Seine, Quai des Augustins, Quai Saint- 
Michel, and Quai Saint-Bernard; on the south by the 
Boulevard du Montparnasse ; on the w&st by the Rue 
Bonaparte ; on the east by the Halle aux Vines ; and contains 
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, I'lnstitut, la Monnaie, Saint 
Germain-des-Pres, Saint Sulpice, la Charrete, Le Luxem- 
bourg, le Palais du Senat, I'Hotel de Cluny, Saint-Severin, 
Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, 1' Ecole de 
Medicine, les lycees Saint-Louis, Napoleon and Louis-le- 
Grande, la Sorbonne, le College de France, I'lnstitution 
Sainte-Barbe, the libraries of Sainte-Genevieve and 
Mazarine, I'Ecole de Droit, le Pantheon, la Pitie, le Jardin 
des Plantes, I'Ecole normale, and I'Ecole polytechnique. 

No quarter has been more profoundly modified by the 
works that have transformed Paris than this one ; and yet 
none has better preserved its own physiognomy ; for it 
possesses a moral vitality, an idea, something like a soul in 

137 



138 PARIS 

short, against which hammers and pick-axes can avail little. 
Thus, great boulevards, altogether similar to those of 
central Paris, boulevards vi^ith their wide causeways, their 
young trees, their stone houses, their great commercial 
counters, and their luxurious shops have been created and, 
so to say, brought there by magic ; the noise, the throng, 
and the tumult of a busy life would make one think that 
one was in the heart of the city ; but two steps away there 
is study, calm, and silence ; this new Paris which has flowed 
thither like a river has not been able to change the old 
Paris that touches its banks in the least ; side by side with 
the Boulevard Saint-Michel, so agitated and full of life, the 
court of the Sorbonne still has between its paving-stones, as 
in the Seventeenth Century, the slender blades of grass of 
vivid green which give it so sweet and so poetic an aspect. 
Opposite the Hotel de Cluny, so pompously restored, are 
hovels where tatters, faiences, stamped metal, and old 
furniture give us the idea of a sleepy provincial town in 
which land and space are of no account. Moreover, and 
this is especially the strange anomaly that should be noted, 
"we scarcely find any remaining traces of the Quartier 
Latin of Balzac and Gavarni ; but that of Felibien, 
Dubellay and Sauval still exists. You would hunt in vain 
in the street that was the Rue Copeau for a youthful 
Rastignac threatening Paris and summoning it to a duel, 
but the race of scholars of the Maistres, the Lenormants, 
and the Etienne Bonets survives in spite of everything. 
We must relegate among the vanished phantoms the 



THE QUARTIER LATIN 139 

strange and charming young man of the Etude de Moeurs 
who said : ** I leave you my pipe and my wife : take good 
care of my pipe ! " but the echo of the Latin country has 
not entirely forgotten the scholar of the Fourteenth Century 
who joyously chanted the Departement des livres! 

Chacum enquiert et veut savoir 
Queje aifet de mon avoir, 
Et comment je suis si despris 
Que «' ai chape ne mantiau gris, 
Cote, ne sorcot, ne tabart. 
Tout est ale a male part, 

A Gaudelus lez La Ferte 
La les sai-je mon A. B. C, 
Et ma patenostre a Soisson, 
Et mon Credo a Monloon, 
Et mes set siaumes a Tornai, 
Mes quinze siauj?ies a Cambrai, 
Et mon sautier a Besencon, 
Et mon kalendier a Dijon. 

It is true that we may henceforth go through the whole 
of the old city situated on the left bank of the Seine with- 
out finding any of the eccentric habits and customs, the 
variety of which gave it so essentially picturesque a char- 
acter ; but was not this ending foreseen ! How could the 
student of to-day persist in being what the studeht of former 
times was, when the inevitable establishment of the Duval 
with its mouldings, its gildings and its ceilings of exotic 
woods was installed in a palace, and when in the Rue des 
Gres, where the Middle Ages had strongly left their imprint, 
an English tavern might be seen selling its roast beef, its 
York ham, its pickles, its sauces of Hanneton pile (see 



140 PARIS 

Balzac) its pale ale and its Irish whiskey, as in the Rue 
Royale and in the Rue de la Madeleine ! All cats are grey 
at night; but under the gas-light everybody should be 
dressed like Brummel, by Dusautoy or Bonne, and, in each 
of the taverns of the new boulevard, the gas sheds torrents 
of light on the young consumers, without troubling about 
the amount of the income of their parents. This is why a 
young man who has an income of three thousand francs 
must spend four thousand at his tailor's to-day. To the 
problem : to be content with the money you possess, the 
following has succeeded : to get the money we need ; — a 
problem the solution of which is very hard to find by young 
people whose studies cost a great deal and do not bring 
anything in, except in the future. 

But is it solely and absolutely because the aspect of life 
has changed that the students have entirely altered their 
way of living ? No ! that is one cause, but not the only 
one. Another reason, a thousand times more important 
and more decisive, has brought about the new state of 
affairs, and it is this. Formerly, young men invariably 
studied law and medicine only for the purpose of making 
their living later by practicing the art of healing, or one of 
the liberal professions to which the study of law serves as 
a foundation. To-day, this unity of aim has been con- 
siderably modified, and the students naturally divide into 
two classes. The first (and these do not form the ma- 
jority,) carry on this healthy and ancient tradition ; but the 
others, on the contrary, only require from the study of law 



THE QUARTIER LATIN 141 

or medicine the means promptly to enter a lucrative pro- 
fession where permanent appointments ofFer a sweet se- 
curity. As for the medical students, those who are up to 
date, and consequently want to be rich, know that genius, 
patience, will, and intense labour under the lamp are neces- 
sary to produce a Velpau, a Trousseau, or a Piorry, and, 
not feeling the vocation of becoming that poor and blessed 
providence that is called a country doctor, they study medi- 
cine with their thoughts on journalism, and in the direction 
of special establishments, and thermal waters, on the dis- 
covery of marvellous springs and universal panaceas, in a 
word, not on being doctors. 

Therefore, among medical and law students, it is not 
astonishing that those whose dream is to become rapidly 
rich should adopt from the very outset the livery and habits 
that characterize the lovers of Rapid Fortune. 

Formerly, among the students, the pure included all ! 
Their parents' money, laboriously and honourably gained in 
the provinces, in the noble toils of agriculture or of liberal 
professions, they intended to give entirely to triumphs, to 
study, to curious researches of the mind ; and also, it must 
be confessed, to pleasure and to love (the reign of which at 
that day still existed), but they did not let it exclude in- 
dustry and social decency. For them, what was necessary 
was a solid and serious instruction gained by assiduity in 
the various courses, by reading in their own rooms and in 
the libraries, by frequenting the newspaper offices, or the 
museums, and the theatre, where literature still flourished : 



142 PARIS 

the excess was those love affairs of the joyous and flowery 
garret which even so much execrable poetry, so many inept 
lithographs, and all the poncifs in the world have not suc- 
ceeded in dishonouring in our memory, because they pos- 
sessed the delightful charm of poverty, of the unexpected, 
of disinterestedness and of youth ! Heroes of disorderly 
balls, school-truants in the days of lilac, hissers of neo- 
classic tragedies at the Odeon, they also knew how to give 
respectful attention in the classes of illustrious professors, 
to grow pale under the lamp over their books, and finally 
to prepare themselves by persistence and deep study to 
become useful men, and at the same time free from all 
commercial fraud. These careless fellows, these fools, in 
fact, spent the best of their youth in studying the physical 
and moral life of man, and in silently weighing the most 
serious problems. Under the iron hand of science, they 
preserved a lively love of art and liberty, and felt it burn 
within them. 

Let the poet speak, and they responded to his voice with 
all the enthusiasm of fiery souls; let the hour strike for 
shaking off a tyranny, and they dashed among bullets, 
bleeding and joyous, their hands black with powder, and 
their voices, accustomed to humming the songs of love and 
wine, intoned the brass strophes of la Marseillaise with a 
sublime thirst for death and sacrifice ! Such was this youth 
at that day, ardent, savage, singular, and so serious at bot- 
tom, whose fatherland and estates were the Quartier Latin, 
and who affected the exhibition of singular manners so that 



THE QUARTIER LATIN 143 

the peaceable ordinary people who were their neighbours 
should esteem themselves happy in letting them live in 
peace in their own way. But in speaking of an epoch that 
is already distant, it is necessary to sketch the material 
features of the Quartier Latin ; for only by this means will 
the reader be able to understand how the students could 
live in Paris as if they had been a thousand leagues away, 
and in it preserve their traditions, their usages, and their 
laws like an independent nation. 

Two long streets, black, narrow, tortuous and intermi- 
nable, the Rue de la Harpe and the Rue Saint-Jacques, on 
the east, formed the communication between the He de la 
Cite, which was the cradle of Paris, and the Mont Sainte- 
Genevieve, which was the cradle of the University ; on the 
west, the He de la Cite was connected as it still is with the 
Luxembourg by the Rue Dauphine. I desire in a few 
lines to show the physiognomy of the two great streets 
of the Quartier Latin as we might have seen them before 
the transformation of Paris. 

Scarcely had the stroller entered the Rue de la Vieille- 
Boucherie, which was then the beginning of the Rue de la 
Harpe, when he felt that he was not at home and that he 
had just penetrated into domains particularly affected by 
special people, among whom one could only come as a 
stranger or a guest. Penthouse shops, constructed on a 
Gothic model, black and smoky houses, — nothing smelt of 
modern civilization ; and it was easy to see that the active 
circulation of money had not penetrated thus far. In the 



144 PARIS 

Rue de la Harpe, it was different again ; the old hotels, the 
sombre houses with wrought-iron balconies had allowed 
time to blacken their noble facades tranquilly ; as for the 
relatively modern houses, corpulent and deep, leaning 
against one another like infirm people, pierced with irregular 
windows, and sometimes without tiles, only adorned by the 
signs of a few strange shops and by the creeping plants, 
pots of flowers and Parisian gardens hanging at the old 
windows, or at the cornices, from the Rue de la Parche- 
minerie, which has not changed since the Middle Ages, to 
the old Saint-Michel, they naively and sincerely told of the 
lives of their inmates. Moreover, it was quite useless to 
consult the stones, and the personages explained them- 
selves. Young, gay, with breasts uncovered without los- 
ing any of their native distinction, coquettishly clothed in 
velvet and all kinds of fantastic costumes, with Basque 
caps or Rubens hats on their heads, they went along the 
streets singing, lounging, gaping in the air, alone, or in 
couples, or in troops, or three by three, gladly selling their 
books at the old book-sellers* to go to the wine-shop ; — a 
custom which, as every one knows, dates from the Fifteenth 
Century ! At that time, the exchange was conducted even 
more frankly, for generally the book-seller was at the same 
time a tavern-keeper : so that if the scholar, who came to 
buy a book, by chance felt the pangs of thirst he sold back 
to the book-seller for a jug of wine the book he had just 
bought and which if he was seized with a desire to work he 
found himself forced to buy it back again. Thanks to this 



THE OUARTIER LATIN 145 

essentially archaic and naive combination, the tavern-book- 
seller realized splendid profits by constantly selling and re- 
selling the same volumes, a speculation of which assuredly 
M. Hachette or M. Michel Levy has never thought. In 
seeing the happy-go-lucky ways that the students allowed 
themselves about 1840, gloomy spirits might have been 
tempted to deny progress ; they would have been mistaken 
however, and I want no other proof than these lines by the 
savant, Quicherat : " Except the professor's chair (in 1500), 
the classes had no benches nor seats of any kind ; the 
rooms were strewed with straw during the winter, and fresh 
grass during the summer. The pupils had to wallow in 
this so-called glitter as an act of humility." 

We see that in comparison with the past, which was 
curious in more ways than one, the eccentricity of the 
young men of 1840 was a very small matter. Besides, it 
had a more noble motive and spring of action than is 
thought. Having decided courageously to submit to their 
somewhat harsh and rude destiny, and to study while liv- 
ing on almost nothing, so as not to involve their families in 
debt, the students accepted their honest misery with an out- 
ward semblance of gaiety and ardent folly, preferring to 
scandalize the Boertians than to excite their tenderness and 
pity, while casting over their poverty the sole mantle that 
ever successfully hid the lack of money : the careless 
fantasy of the artist ! Much wiser at bottom than they 
seemed to be, they wore Basque caps for the sake of econ- 
omizing the sixteen francs required for a silk hat ; and not 



146 PARIS 

being able to buy well-made hats they went about in little 
fool's-caps and in light robes painted with flowerets. Not 
possessing any means to provide themselves with luxuries, 
and with it to make sad and false great ladies, at least they 
did not refuse them their arm ; they acknowledged them 
with sincere affection and showed them with pride in the 
full noonday glare ! It was slight courage, moreover, for, 
not being obliged to appear rich, these girls took the trouble 
to be young, and adorned with childish grace, and fresh as 
roses, at a time when people did not yet abuse that flour 
improperly called rice-powder ! They have been celebrated 
thousands and thousands of times, — those lovers of the first 
spring and of the twentieth year, who loved songs and 
whose entire toilette was not worth a couple of louis ! 
They have not been celebrated sufficiently even yet ; for, 
sprung from the people, they worked without fearing the 
pricks of the needle , they inhabited garrets furnished above 
all with the garland of fresh flowers at the old window ; 
they loved their lovers without thinking of getting them- 
selves enriched or married, and without any pretention save 
that of spending with them those years of youth that so 
quickly fly away ; and, when the dream came to an end, 
they bravely continued their daily work, they sewed ! And 
when they had returned to the humble sphere of their fleet- 
ing amours, they made memories that charmed the whole 
of a rough and laborious life. As for the students, they had 
the courage to love them without ruining their families for 
them. Nowadays perhaps they would have the right to 



THE QU ARTIER LATIN 147 

be less scrupulous ; for, in a family where the son plays at 
the Bourse like his father, he can sometimes say to himself 
that his father has the chance of awakening to-morrow 
morning a millionaire, and, if not his father, then perhaps 
himself. But at that time we were far from the beautiful 
days of the Bourse and its maddening enchantments ! 



HOTEL DE CLUNY 

PROSPER MERIMEE 

PIERRE DE CHASLUS, Abbe de Cluny, about 
1340, acquired for his order the Roman ruins 
icnown under the name of the Palais des Thermes, 
situated in Paris between the Rue Saint-Jacques and the 
Rue de la Harpe. In this place a century later, another 
Abbe de Cluny, Jean de Bourbon, the natural son of John 
I., Duke of Bourbon, laid the foundation of the Hotel that 
exists to-day. Probably these works accelerated the ruin 
of various parts of the ancient palace, which at that period 
presented a considerable series of buildings. As is known, 
it had been built by Constantine Chlorus, and successively 
occupied by Julian, Valentinian and Valens during the stay 
of those Emperors in the north of Gaul. Some of our 
kings of the first and second race held their court there. 
On looking at the immense halls that still exist and the 
Roman sub-structures, traces of which are found through- 
out the quarter, we can gain an idea of the truly colossal 
proportions of the ancient palace. 

The death of Jean de Bourbon, in 1485, interrupted the 
building of the Hotel that had been begun ; but, five years 
afterward, it was resumed by his successor, the Abbe Jacques 
d'Amboise (brother of the cardinal), afterwards Bishop of 

Clermont, who completed it. 

148 



HOTEL DE CLUNY 149 

Superb and magnificent, in fact, must have been the 
abode of the rich abbes who were brought to the court by 
their affairs. They were not the people to put up in an inn, 
much less in a monastery. Their house, as they modestly 
called it, in 15 15 lodged a queen, Mary of England, widow 
of Louis XIL, and sister of Henry VIIL In 1536, James 
v.. King of Scotland, on the day of his entry into Paris, 
alighted at the Hotel de Cluny, where he was received by 
Francois I., who was going to give his daughter, Magdeleine, 
to him in marriage. 

After the kings, the princes of the House of Lorraine 
and the Papal Nuncios lodged in the House of Cluny. I 
cannot say whether the abbes leased or lent it, but I incline 
to the latter for they were sufficiently great lords to exer- 
cise hospitality even toward sovereigns. However, at the 
end of the Eighteenth Century the hardness of the times 
obliged them to get some return from their property. 

The Revolution did not allow them to collect their rents 
very long. Alienated for the national good, the Hotel de 
Cluny passed successively through the hands of several 
owners. Industries were established there which paid little 
attention to repairs, or, if any were made, they only resulted 
in altering the character of the building. 

None of those who were brought to the Hotel de Cluny 
by curiosity had thought of making the slightest attempt 
of rescuing from the vandals a monument so remarkable 
by its architecture and memories until 1833, when M. A. 
du Sommerard, Councillor in the Cour des Comptes came 



ISO PARIS 

to establish himself in it with his rich collection. To-day, 
when financiers and beautiful women pay gold by the 
pound-weight for more or less antique curiosities, it is 
hard to explain how a magistrate who only possessed a 
modest fortune had succeeded in gathering together so 
much furniture and so many rarities of the Middle Ages 
and the Renaissance. The fact is he had appreciated the 
merit of these objects before the vile flock of imitators ; he 
had studied the Middle Ages at a time when no one cared 
about them. Admiring the beautiful under all its forms, 
he had early perceived that in making goblets or caskets, 
Benvenuto Cellini had shown himself as skillful an artist 
as when he modelled his Perseus. M. du Sommerard had 
hunted through Italy and France collecting all the ancient 
utensils and furniture on which he found an elegant and 
characteristic ornamentation. He had first attached him- 
self to the productions of the Renaissance ; but he was not 
one of those amateur maniacs who adopt an epoch and who 
indiscriminately buy everything associated with it good or 
bad, for the sake of completing it^ as they say in their jargon. 

M. du Sommerard had too much good taste to fall into 
that rut. At a period when the art of the Middle Ages 
was at once entirely unknown and despised, he eagerly 
sought enamels, ivories, and all that mass of admirably- 
wrought furniture that had escaped the destructions that 
are unfortunately so frequent in our country. 

On establishing himself in the Hotel de Cluny, only one 
apartment of which he occupied, M. du Sommerard con- 



HOTEL DE CLUNY 151 

stituted himself the benevolent conservator of the last 
civil edifice of the Middle Ages vi^hich existed after so many 
transformations of old Paris. At his death, in 1842, the de- 
struction of the Hotel de Cluny would have been a public 
scandal. It w^as feared that the collection so often coveted 
by rich foreigners might be dispersed and lost to the country. 
At the desire expressed by the Commission of Historical 
Monuments, the Government brought forw^ard a law for 
the acquisition of the Hotel and the Collection. If my 
memory serves me, the law passed almost without discus- 
sion, and the city of Paris immediately hastened to off'er to 
the State as a free gift the Palais des Thermes, contiguous 
to the Hotel, and municipal property since 18 19. Thus, 
by a happy concurrence of circumstances, these two curi- 
ous edifices were finally preserved for the Arts and received 
the most fitting destiny : the Roman palace offered an asy- 
lum to the scattered fragments of ancient Lutetia; the 
Hotel of the Fifteenth Century was opened to the mediaeval 
productions of art and industry. The new establishment, 
constituted by the law of July 24th, 1843, ^as placed un- 
der the superintendence of the Commission of Historical 
Monuments. 

The collection of M. du Sommerard was piled up in a 
somewhat narrow apartment. Although largely augmented 
by recent acquisitions, it is now comfortable in vast halls 
where it has received a methodic classification which has 
not excluded a picturesque disposition. Whilst the anti- 
quarian bending over a glass case studies an enamel or a 



152 PARIS 

faience plate, a painter studies the effects of light playing 
over carved woods, or reflected in the armour. Among the 
numerous visitors to the museum, one often notices young 
workmen with an intelligent look who know how to handle 
the rule and pencil, taking notes and measurements before 
some old piece of furniture. They are right. There are 
few industries which have not something to learn and to 
take from the Cluny museum. The positive economist 
gentlemen, who declaim against the expenditures on our 
museums and Fine Art schools, might have recognized 
from the Great Exhibition in London how much our 
manufactures owe to these establishments. 

The ground-floor of the Hotel de Cluny is devoted to furni- 
ture of large dimensions, statues, and hangings of all kinds. 

The beautifully-carved staircase, bearing the arms and 
monograms of Henri IV^., and Catherine de Medicis, es- 
tablishes the necessary communication between the rooms 
on the ground-floor and those of the first story. This 
staircase, made for the old Chambre des Comptes, after the 
demolition of the latter, had been relegated to the shops of 
the city. The Prefet de la Seine presented it to the 
museum, for which one might think it had been made. 

A volume would be required for the mere enumeration 
of the principal objects exhibited in the rooms on the first 
story, furniture, arms, paintings, pottery, faience, enamels, 
glass, and carved ivories. Let us mention the great carved 
chimney-pieces from Troyes and Chalons, beautiful re- 
tables of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and es- 



HOTEL DE CLUNY 153 

pecially the magnificent ivories of the Chartreuse de Dijon, 
known as the Oratory of the Duchesses of Burgundy. 

Although the Musee de Cluny is not as rich as many 
amateurs, it has several advantages over them. In the 
first place it is immortal ; it buys and does not sell. In the 
second place it is patient, because it is immortal, and conse- 
quently it is insensible to the caprices of fashion, so power- 
ful over collectors. When the fashion runs to enamels and 
they attain extravagant prices at sales, the administration 
whose mission is to seek the beautiful and the useful and 
which can always wait and choose, leaves enamels alone and 
acquires ivories or carved wood. Patience ! Ivories will 
soon be up and enamels will soon be within their resources. 

I must not forget the gifts and legacies that form a no- 
table portion of the collection. And first we must mention 
the very numerous and very well-placed gifts of the city 
of Paris. The Hotel de Cluny, with the Palais des 
Thermes, is its principal museum. It is quite right that It 
should have been chosen for the reception for a mass of antique 
or mediaeval fragments that were formerly dispersed and 
badly kept in twenty diff^erent depots. Every day the 
great works that transform Paris bring interesting debris of 
our ancient city ; some day they will form the most pre- 
cious collection for its monumental history. Following the 
example of the Municipal body, several private persons 
have been willing to contribute to enrich a collection where 
all sympathies meet. I lack the space here to give a list of 
the gifts and donors which would be interminable. 



154 



PARIS 



The Hotel de Cluny is a historical monument that con- 
tains historical monuments ; to-day it is the sole edifice in 
Paris that can give a complete idea of a seignorial habita- 
tion of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. It had 
suffered various cruel wrongs at the hand of Time, but 
more especially at the hand of man : its last owners had 
mutilated some of its dispositions as though wantonly. 
After the Hotel came into the possession of the State, 
various important repairs were made. Unfortunately, it 
was necessary to proceed very slowly and to acquire with 
no less economy. However, all the parts of the edifice 
that were repaired have been restored in a complete man- 
ner. In proportion as the condition of a given room de- 
manded a partial restoration, the ancient dispositions were 
restored with the most scrupulous exactitude. 

The establishment of the Musee de Cluny has exercised 
a most happy influence upon the Quartier Saint-Jacques. 
The Municipal administration has cleared a space for it, 
and the Rue des Mathurins, formerly a narrow and danger- 
ous lane, has been entirely transformed. All the ignoble 
houses that deprived the Hotel de Cluny of light and air 
have disappeared. The great Rue des Ecoles now opens 
out before the museum. Let us hope that by further 
demolition the complete perimeter may be discovered of 
the Palais des Thermes the sub-structions of which, which 
are still visible at various points, seem to mark the natural 
limits of the Hotel de Cluny. 




IHE SORBOXNE, 



A 



LA SORBONNE 

S. SOPHIA BE ALE 

NOTHER institution which owes its initiative to 
Saint-Louis is the Sorbonne, actually founded in 
1250 by Robert de Sorbon, a canon of Paris, 
for sixteen poor students in theology. The present church 
is a fine example of the Seventeenth Century Classicism, 
such as the world of that day affected. Jacques Lemercier 
was the architect, and the great Cardinal the paymaster, 
and between them they turned out a very respectable piece 
of work with a certain sense of grandeur, and a very fine 
dome, the first that figured in Paris. It was built between 
1635 and 1659. Within, is the marble tomb of Richelieu, 
the work of Girardon (1694) from the design of Lebrun. 
The great man reclines gracefully upon a couch supported 
by a figure of Religion, and a weeping lady of Science at 
his feet. It has not the feeling of the Renaissance sculp- 
ture, and although Religion forms a principal part of the 
composition, it is purely and simply a secular design. It 
might be the memorial of a Pagan, and it would be just as 
appropriate in a town hall, a garden, or a theatre ; but that 
perhaps gives it the more fitness as the monument of so 
singular a churchman and so farcical a Christian. The 
wary Cardinal turns up his face and piously gazes at 

155 



156 PARIS 

Heaven as if that were his only thought ; he appears over- 
whelmed with holiness and sanctity, a veritable Pecksniff 
arrayed in the gorgeous robes of a prince of the holy 
Roman Church. But artistically, the composition is fine, 
far liner than any of the works of the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury, and one feels that could the figure rise, it would move 
about with the same grace as that portrayed in the noble 
portrait of the great statesman by Philippe de Champaigne 
in the Louvre. As posthumous retribution for his crimes 
and vices, Richelieu's head was chopped off into three 
pieces in 1793, and remained fragmentary until i86i,when 
they were patched together. The church also contains 
a painting by Hesse of little value, Robert de Sorbon pre- 
sentant a Saint Louis de jeunnes eleves en theologie^ and some 
statues by Romy and Bure. 



SAINT-SEVERIN 

S. SOPHIA BE ALE 

^ ¥ "^HE church of Saint-Severin is particularly inter- 
I esting as showing a gradual development from 

"^ the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century. 
Founded upon the site of an oratory by Henri I., in 
1050, it was first rebuilt at the end of the Eleventh 
Century. 

There were two saints of this name ; one, the founder 
of the Abbey Chateaulandon, who miraculously cured 
Clovis I. of some sickness by placing his chasuble upon 
him ; and the other, the patron of this church, a man, or 
rather a hermit, who lived during the reign of Childebert 
I., in a cell near Paris, and was of course much given to 
prayer and supplications, and other pious exercises. So 
well did he preach his pacific faith, that Saint Cloud, or 
Clodoaldus, the grandson of Queen Clotilde, became one 
of his disciples, and received the religious habit of the Ben- 
edictine order from him. 

Saint-Severin was probably buried near the oratory, and 
what would be more natural than that the disciple should 
consecrate the spot to the memory of his master ? In 
1050 Henri I. gave the patronage, which had been up to 
his reign in the hands of the kings, to the then Bishop of 

157 



158 PARIS 

Paris, Imbert. At the end of the Eleventh Century it be- 
came an enormous parish, extending almost over the whole 
of the southern part of the city. It is now the centre of 
the Italion legion, models, organ-grinders, white-mice men, 
and plaster-image venders ; and it is a pretty sight on Sun- 
days znd J7te-da.ys to see the church packed with emigrants 
from the sunny South decked out in all the splendour of 
their holiday attire. 

The present church of Saint-Severin was rebuilt in the 
Thirteenth Century, in great part by money obtained by 
indulgences, which Clement VI., in 1347, accorded to the 
generously inclined among the faithful. In the next cen- 
tury this system was revived, and the church wardens, with 
shrewd foresight, bought up more ground, with a view to 
the enlargement of the building. The first stone of the 
new part was laid in 1489, the chapel of Saint-Sebastian 
being built three years later. In 1490 the chapel of the 
Conception, which was situated near the east end, was de- 
molished to make way for the lengthening of the north 
aisle. Five years later, Jean Simon, Bishop of Paris, con- 
secrated the new portions of the church, including the high 
altar, and several of the chapels of the chevet. In 1498 the 
chapels on the south side were commenced by Micheaul 
le Gros; the sacristy and treasury being added in 1540, 
and the chapel of the Communion in 1673, to make an 
entrance for which the chapel of Saint Sebastian had to be 
destroyed. Thus for four hundred years, more or less, the 
church was undergoing constant change and development. 



SAINT-SEVERIN 159 

Then began the downward path, commencing with the de- 
struction of the jube and the " ornamentation " of the 
sanctuary to suit the taste of the devotees of Classic art. 
Originally, many of the Paris churches had jubes (rood- 
screens), but the only one now remaining is that of Saint- 
Etienne du Mont. A brass attached to one of the pillars 
gives the names of the donors of the screen, Antoine de 
Compaigne (illuminator) and his wife, Oudette. 

The portal is profusely carved and bears an inscription 
upon the stylobate (the letters of which are of the Thirteenth 
Century), giving the various duties of the grave-diggers. 
As in many other churches, there are two lions on each 
side of the arch, probably the supports formerly of some 
heraldic shields. This, no doubt, is the origin of the 
formula, which terminates certain ecclesiastical judgments 
pronounced on the threshold of the temple. Datum inter 
duos hones. The tympanum bas-relief has been restored. 
It represents the charity of Saint-Martin, who is one of 
the patrons of the church, and whose mutilated mantle, or 
a portion of it, has been one of the cherished relics of 
Saint-Severin since the Fourteenth Century. There is also 
a chapel dedicated to the venerable bishop of Tours, which 
was formerly covered with ex voto horseshoes, the gifts of 
thankful travellers ; for Saint-Martin having been on horse- 
back when he divided his cloak, became the patron of the 
travelling community. The western facade is composed 
of portions of the portal of Saint Pierre-aux-Boeufs in the 
Cite, which was demolished in 1837, ^^^ ^h ^^ ViuXq 



i6o PARIS 

which has been left unrestoied, of the Thirteenth Century. 
Above the porch of Saint-Severin are an open work gallery, 
a rose window, and a cornice upon which a party of little 
animals are playing among the foliage, all in Flamboyant 
style. The statue of the Virgin is quite modern. The 
whole of the chapels, as well as the greater part of the 
nave, are of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries; but the 
first three bays of the nave are of a totally different style; 
the form of the arches and of the windows shows the crafts- 
manship of the Thirteenth Century artists. Birds and 
beasts, natural and grotesque, form gargoyles, shooting the 
rain-water from their open mouths. At the northwest end 
of the chapels, an elegantly carved canopied niche encloses 
the patron Saint, and near him is an inscription inviting the 
passers-by to pray for the souls of the departed. 

The interior consists of a nave and double aisles. The 
triforium is very similar to that of Westminster Abbey 
Church ; but at the commencement of the apse, the Thir- 
teenth Century arches were filled in with round-headed 
ones, Cupid-like Cherubs being placed between the two to 
" ornament " the intervening space, and the pillars converted 
into marbled pilasters. 

It was Mile, de Montpensier who caused the marbling 
of the choir to be undertaken in 1684, and who also bore 
the expenses of the baldachino of the altar, employing the 
sculptor Tubi to carry out the designs of Lebrun. 

In the south aisle, on the south, is a little door leading 
through a garden, formerly the graveyard, to the presbytere. 



SAINT-SEVERIN 161 

This, in summer, forms a charming little picture. In one 
of the side chapels (Notre-Dame de I'Esperance) is a Fif- 
teenth Century wall-painting of the Resurrection of the 
Dead; and in the chapel of the chevet a Preaching of John 
the Baptist^ also in fresco. 

A number of distinguished persons were buried at Saint- 
Severin : Etienne Pasquier, an eloquent Avocat-Gen'eral 
under Henri III., who was mainly instrumental in causing 
the exclusion of the Jesuits from the University, and who 
died in 1615; the brothers Saint-Martre, celebrated men 
of letters living at the beginning of the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury ; and Moreri, the author of the Dictionnaire Historique, 
who died in 1680. 

The church contains no furniture of any value artistic- 
ally, except perhaps, the organ and wrought-iron gallery, 
erected in 1747 to replace an earlier instrument of 15 12. 

A good deal of the stained glass is of the Fifteenth and 
Sixteenth Centuries, and bears the figures and arms of the 
donors (some of whom appear by their long robes to have 
been magistrates), accompanied by their wives and families. 
The subjects are the usual ones taken from the New Tes- 
tament, or from the lives of the Saints ; but a few are 
somewhat out of the beaten track. 



THE PANTHEON 

PHILIP GILBERT HJMERTON 

THE Pantheon has stood the test of a hundred years 
of criticism, without which no building can be 
sure of permanent fame. Its merits are not of a 
kind to excite enthusiasm, but they gain upon us with time 
and satisfy the reason if they do not awaken the imagina- 
tion. We can never feel with regard to a severe classical 
building like the Pantheon the glow of romantic pleasure 
which fills sense and spirit in Notre-Dame or the Sainte- 
Chapelle. If there is emotion here it is of a different kind. 
The building has a stately and severe dignity ; it is at once 
grave and elegant, but it is neither amusing as Gothic 
architecture often is by its variety, nor astonishing as 
Gothic buildings are by the boldness with which they seem 
to contravene the ordinary conditions of matter. The 
edifice consists of a very plain building in the form of a 
cross, with a pediment on pillars at one end and a dome 
rising in the middle. There are no visible windows, an 
enunciation that adds immensely to the severity and gravity 
of the composition, while it enhances the value of the 
columns and pediment, and gives (by contrast) great addi- 
tional lightness and beauty to the admirable colonnade be- 
neath the dome. There does not exist, in modern archi- 

162 



THE PANTHEON 163 

tecture, a more striking example of a blank wall. The 
vast plain spaces are overwhelming when seen near, and 
positively required the little decoration which, in the shape 
of festooned garlands, relieves their upper portion. At a 
little distance the building is seen to be, for the dome, what 
a pedestal is for a statue ; and the projection of the tran- 
septs on each side of the portico, when the edifice is seen 
in front, acts as margin to an engraving. Had their plain 
surfaces been enriched and varied with windows, the front 
view would have lost half its meaning ; the richness of the 
Corinthian capitals and sculptured tympanum, and the im- 
portance of the simple inscription, draw the eye to them- 
selves at once. 

The situation of the Pantheon is the finest in Paris for 
an edifice of that kind. Only one other is comparable to 
it, Montmartre, on which is now slowly rising a church of 
another order, dedicated to the Sacr'e Coeur. The dome of 
the Pantheon is one of the great landmarks of Paris ; it is 
visible from every height, and from a thousand places of no 
particular elevation. It does not simply belong to its own 
quarter, but to the whole city. 

The interior is interesting in different ways, both as an 
experiment in architecture and as an experiment in the em- 
ployment of mural painting on an important scale. The 
first point likely to interest an architectural student is the 
manner in which the architect has combined his vaults and 
his pillars. Soufflot's tendency (unlike that of the archi- 
tects of St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London) 



i64 PARIS 

was toward an excessive lightness. His project was to 
erect his dome on elegant pillars ; but these were found in- 
sufficient, and another architect (Rondelet) replaced them 
by massive piers of masonry. Elsewhere there are 
Corinthian columns carrying a frieze and cornice, and 
above the cornice a groined (intersected) vault, of course 
with round arches, and having exceedingly slender termina- 
tions, as this system of vaulting cuts away nearly every- 
thing and leaves a minimum of substance at the corners to 
bear the weight. 

There is a remarkable peculiarity about the level of the 
floor; the aisles and transepts are higher than the nave into 
which you have to descend by five steps. The general 
aspect of the interior is agreeable, from the pleasant natural 
colour of the stone and its thoroughly careful finish every- 
where ; but the large spaces of wall, though divided by 
half-columns, were felt to be too bare. 

Mural painting ought never to make us feel as if the 
wall were taken away, because that is an injury to the 
architecture. The painting should be so far removed from 
realism that we feel the wall to be a wall still, upon which 
certain events have been commemorated. Among French 
mural painters, not one has understood this so well as Puvis 
de Chavannes, and it would have been wise to entrust to 
him the entire decoration of the Pantheon, both for the 
sake of the architecture and for the unity of the work ; but 
unfortunately (so far as these considerations are concerned), 
other men have also been called in, men of great ability, 



THE PANTHEON 165 

no doubt, yet who were not disposed to make the neces- 
sary sacrifices. Puvis de Chavannes is essentially a mural 
painter. His large work in the Pantheon represents the 
finding of Sainte-Genevieve when a child by Saint-Germain 
and Saint-Loup, at Nanterre, when they were journeying 
toward England. The bishop sees that the child has a 
religious aspect, "has the Divine seal upon her," and pre- 
dicts for her a memorable future. This takes place in a 
vast landscape, with undulating ground and fine trees in the 
middle distance against a line of blue hills, and a blue sky 
with white, long clouds. In the foreground is a rustic 
scene, including the milking of a cow under a shed ; and 
in the middle distance we have a view of Nanterre, or at 
least of a mediaeval city. The figures are all very simply 
painted in dead colour, kept generally pale and hardly going 
beyond tints, which are often false so far as nature is con- 
cerned, but never discordant. Such painting is very reti- 
cent, very consistent ; and, though it is not true, it contains 
a great amount of truth, and implies far more knowledge 
than it directly expresses. The landscape background, for 
example, is simple, but it is not ignorant; it shows quite 
plainly that the painter is a man of our own century, per- 
fectly conversant with our knowledge, yet decided not to 
go beyond a certain fixed point in the direction of actual 
imitation. The figures are exceedingly dignified ; but 
when the painter gets away from the muscular type, and 
has to deal with weaker men or with children, he is not so 
satisfying. A smaller picture represents the child Sainte- 



i66 PAHIS 

Genevieve praying in a field, while the rustics watch and 
admire her. The sentiment here is very pure and simple, 
like that of an idyllic poem. In the upper part of the 
composition a ploughboy, behind trees, watches the saint 
while his oxen rest; in the lower part, a peasant man and 
woman watch her also. 

Now, although these paintings tell their story perfectly, 
not a single person or other object in them is so far realized 
as to make us forget the wall-surface. A story has been 
told upon the wall just as an inscription might have been 
written upon it, but nothing has been done to take the wall 
away. Even the pale tinting is so contrived as not to con- 
trast too violently with the natural stone around it. Let 
the visitor who has just seen these paintings, and, perhaps, 
been a little put out by their conventionalism, glance up 
from them to the pendentives under the dome painted by 
Carvallo from drawings by Gerard. Those works are 
strong in darks, and in far more powerful relief than the 
situation warrants. They are also surrounded by heavily 
gilt carvings, which make the surrounding stone look poor; 
in short, from the architectural point of view, they are a 
series of vulgar blunders. I would not use language of 
this kind with reference to so serious, so noble an artist as 
John Paul Laurens, but I cannot help regretting that his 
magnificent composition of the death of Sainte-Genevieve 
was not in some public gallery rather than in the Pan- 
theon. The realization is far too powerful for a mural 
painting. We do not see a record on a wall, but the wall 



THE PANTHEON 167 

is demolished, and through the opening we witness the 
scene itself, the infinitely pathetic closing scene at the end 
of a saintly life, when, even in the last moments of ex- 
tremest weakness, a venerable woman still throws into the 
expression of her countenance the benedictions that she 
cannot utter. One consequence of the external force with 
which all the figures and objects are realized in full model- 
ling and colour is that the two columns which cross the 
work vertically are felt to be in the way j in other words, 
the architecture of the Pantheon is in the way, and so far 
from helping the architect, the painter has done him an 
injury, for what are smoothly chiselled stones, what are 
fluted columns and pretty Corinthian capitals, to the awful 
approach of Death ? 

On the other mural paintings in the Pantheon we have 
no need to dwell. So far as I know them yet, they belong 
to the class of historical genre common in the French 
salons, and have neither the power of Laurens nor the care- 
ful adaptation of Puvis de Chavannes. Cabanel's pictures 
represent three scenes in the history of Saint-Louis, — one 
his childhood, when he is being taught by his mother ; the 
second, his civil justice ; and a third, his military life as a 
Crusader. The first subject is the best suited to Cabanel's 
talent, and is a pretty domestic scene. The subject 
selected by M. Maillot for his paintings in the south tran- 
sept is a mediaeval procession with the relics of Sainte-Gen- 
evieve, and these paintings are a good example of a danger 
different from the powerful realization of Laurens. In the 



i68 PARIS 

present instance the evil is a crudity of a brilliant colour, 
like medineval illumination, which always seems out of 
place on a wall unless it is carried out consistently by poly- 
chromatic decoration throughout the building. 

It is sometimes said by journalists that these paintings 
are frescos (wall-paintings are generally taken for frescos). 
The fact is that they are oil-paintings on toile marouji'ee^ 
that is, on canvas fastened to the wall by a thick coat of 
white-lead. This is now the accepted method for mural 
painting in France. It is convenient for the artist, as it 
allows him to paint in his own studio on a material he is 
accustomed to use ; and it is believed to be as permanent as 
any other. 




THE LUXEMBOURG 

LOUIS ENJULT 

NGLISH gardens must have been invented by 
small ownership. Small property delights in 
making illusions for itself, in pretending space it 
does not possess, and in consoling itself for what it lacks 
by the unexpected, by detour^ by surprise and by deceiving 
the eye. A clump of trees negligently placed on the right 
masks the neighbouring house ; this haha skilfully conceals 
the common ditch ; behind those tendrils of clematis and 
jasmine, set somewhat too close to the windows, there is a 
party wall. But when we own wide domains, when we 
are not obliged to measure out our ground regretfully and 
with a niggardly hand, then the facade of our palace is 
majestically developed ; we want to feel free air and pure 
light about us ; the beds sweep away of themselves and 
expand ; the gardens become parks, the alleys are avenues 
that lengthen and extend, opening endless walks before our 
feet and distant perspectives of vast horizon before our 
eyes. 

Such is the Luxembourg. 

Rarely has an artist's genius raised a nobler palace for 

the princes of the earth ; nowhere do the same lines of the 

architecture and the undulous and supple lines that softly 

169 



170 PARIS 

round the plants and trees combine in more harmonious 
union. If we were to consider the palace by itself we 
should perhaps find it a trifle heavy — it was made so by 
Louis Philippe — but, nevertheless, it cuts a fine figure and 
has a grand air amid its gardens. 

In the Sixteenth Century what is now the Luxembourg 
was the domain of a simple gentleman, Robert de Harley 
de Sancy. The Duke of Luxembourg purchased it in 
1580. He restored and enlarged it. A few years later, 
Marie de Medicis acquired it for ninety thousand francs ; 
then she summoned Jacques Desbrosses and ordered a pal- 
ace from him. Jacques Desbrosses remembered the Pitti 
Palace where Marie's happy childhood had been spent ; he 
took inspiration from it without imitating it. That pa- 
vilion of the facade, surmounted by a cupola and set in the 
centre of a gallery flanked by two other pavilions, that 
square tower formed by long parallelograms of buildings 
with pavilions at the centre and at the angles, that is Flor- 
entine architecture, it is the disposition of the great abodes 
of the French feudal lords of the Sixteenth Century. 

The palace presents three distinct orders that are repro- 
duced throughout. On the ground floor is the Tuscan 
order, — that is the memory of the Pitti Palace ; — on the 
first floor is the Doric order, and the Ionic order on the 
second. We enter the palace by two principal facades : 
one, looking on the Rue de Tournon, the other, looking 
on the garden. The whole ground floor is in arcades 
formed by piers ornamented with pilasters cut by bossages. 



THE LUXEMBOURG 171 

The Doric order of the next floor has its entablature orna- 
mented with triglyphs and metopes ; the bossages that 
round the angles are in alternate bands, and, instead of 
being continuous in height, they are placed on the columns, 
pilasters and piers in turn. 

The interior of the Palace, the distribution of which is 
most happy, comprises a magnificent staircase, called the 
staircase of honour, built by Chalgrin, a guardroom, a 
waiting-room for the ushers, a room for the messengers of 
the throne, a conference-hall, a council-chamber, a throne- 
room, and, lastly, the hall of the sessions of the Senate. 
The hall of the sessions, very favourably disposed as to 
acoustics, is formed of two opposed and unequal hemi- 
cycles : the smaller contains the desk ; the greater, the seats 
of the senators. The two hemicycles are adorned with 
carved oakwork by Klagman, Triquetti and Elschouet. 
Above the woodwork rise columns of stucco in both hemi- 
cycles, but their decoration is not the same in each. In 
the intercolumniation of the larger, public tribunes have 
been arranged ; in the smaller, the similar space is occupied 
by the statues of legislators. The vault is cylindrical with 
its coving pierced by two wide glass windows ; its ground is 
gold, sown with arabesques, gold on gold. The piers of the 
coving are decorated with paintings in wax of a very pretty 
effect ; gold smiles and glitters everywhere on the branches 
and acanthus leaves : it is almost overpowering. 

The rostrums have disappeared. 

The library with its vast windows opening upon the 



172 PARIS 

garden is enriched by a ceiling representing the Elysian 
Fields, upon which Delacroix has lavished the harmonious 
treasures of his palette, and, so to speak, exhausted the 
entire chromatic scale. 

All who love beautiful walks, full of freshness and 
shadow amid memories and flowers, will pass enchanted 
hours in the gardens of the Luxembourg, 

The gardens of the Luxembourg, like the palace, the 
work of Jacques Desbrosses, are at once large without 
uniformity and majestic without monotony ; with exquisite 
art they combine variety with unity : nothing could be 
simpler than the general plan, nor more ingenious than the 
manner in which this happy plan is modified and renewed 
at every moment. Before the centre of the palace a vast 
parterre, adorned with flowers mingled with shrubs and 
sward contains an octagon basin in which swans sport and 
swim about gently while pruning their white plumage. On 
either side the ground slopes sharply upward planted with 
rose-trees and enclosed by a double iron balustrade. These 
slopes support great terraces adorned with shrubs and small 
trees, laburnums with golden trails, hawthorns, and great 
lilacs that shower down a soft rain of perfume from their 
blossoms. All this charming and delicate vegetation is 
supported by great clumps of chestnuts, the sombre foliage 
of which lends a vigorous background against which these 
thousand details stand out. Then amid the groves in the 
shade and among the flowers are all the glories of the 
female Pantheon of France, made divine in marble. 



THE LUXEMBOURG 173 

Before all others, as the purest and most radiant, let us 
salute Jeanne d'Arc, that maiden who was a great man, — 
then St. Clotilde, Anne of Brittany, Anne of Provence, 
Anne of Austria, Anne de Beaujeu, Valentine de Milan, 
Mile, de Montpensier — la grande Mademoiselle, — Clem- 
ence Isaure, Jeanne Hachette, Catherine de Medicis: I 
purposely mix those who were queens with those who 
deserved to be. 

However, let us not forget the High Priestess of the 
Gauls, the sacred Druidess Velleda, crowned with vervain ; 
she is pale for she has beheld the fasces of a consul and she 
forgets her golden sickle and the mistletoe sacred to the 
Gallic Diana. 

Casta Diva! 

A superb alley extends the gardens as far as the observa- 
tory, that saw Marshal Ney's blood flow. 

It seems that in this beautiful garden — solitude and 
silence in Paris — everything invites the soul to meditation, 
calm and peace. Formerly, when strolling amid its vast 
alleys, one could see the tops of those pious refuges where 
the noise of the tempests of the world had died away — the 
convents or the cloisters of the Feuillantines, Ursulines, 
Carmelites, Filles de la Providence, Filles du Calvaire, des 
Carmes, des Chartreux, des Capucins and des Jesuits. 

And now beyond the high round tops of its great trees 
what do we see ? The dome of Sainte-Genevieve, the 
cupola of Val-de-Grace, and the towers of Saint-Sulpice. 

Marie de Medicis passed several years in the Palace of 



174 PARIS 

the Luxembourg — it was then called the Palais- Medicis. 
She lived there as a prisoner rather than as a queen. The 
Cologne exile soon left the Luxembourg to her second son, 
Gaston d' Orleans. It was then the Palais d' Orleans. 
After him the Luxembourg fell to Mile, de Montpensier, 
the fiery heroine of the Fronde, to her who had the cannon 
of the Bastille trained upon the king's troops. "There," 
said Mazarin, " is a cannon shot that has just killed her 
husband ! " After having coveted the thrones of France, 
England, Spain and Germany, " la Grande Mademoiselle " 
received a Gascon cadet in the Royal alcoves of the Lux- 
embourg. Later the Luxembourg was inhabited by the 
Regent and his daughters — all the capital sins — and then by 
the Comte de Provence who had received it from Louis 
XVI. The Terror turned the Luxembourg into a prison, 
and the Directory made a dining-room and a boudoir of it. 
It was the first palace of the consulate, then the palace of 
the imperial Senate, and of the restored Peers. There Louis 
Blanc, after February, held what was called in the lauguage 
of the day, the £tats Generaux du Travail. The senate 
entered it with the Empire. 

The Musee du Luxembourg is the Louvre of living 
artists. 

In i66i, there was collected in the Musee du Luxembourg 
ninety-eight pictures comprising canvasses by Raphael, 
Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Veronese, Correggio, Poussin, 
Claude Lorraine, Carracchio, Van Dyck and Rembrandt; 
very soon the Rubenses of the Medicis gallery were added. 



THE LUXEMBOURG 175 

These pictures remained at the Luxembourg till the 
Comte de Provence came to live there ; shortly before 
1789, they were transported to the Louvre. From 1802 
to 18 15, there was a little museum at the Louvre. In 
18 1 5 the pictures again crossed the Seine. 

It was Louis XVIII. who decided that the Luxembourg 
should become the asylum of the masterpieces, purchased 
by the State, of living painters and sculptors, and that their 
works should remain there ten years after their death till 
the best of the good ones among them should be selected 
to enter into the serene immortality of the Louvre. 

That was a great and fruitful idea; but its execution 
demanded intelligence in art and independence of character 
in the agents in power. 



SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRJ^S 

S. SOPHU BEALE 

THE Abbey of Saint-Germain-in-the-fields, of which 
nothing remains but the church and abbot's palace, 
was, after Notre-Dame, the oldest foundation in 
Paris. It dates back to the earliest period of the French 
monarchy, and its history is interwoven with that of some 
of the best and noblest sons of France. The Saint to 
whom this church is dedicated was an early bishop of Paris, 
and must not be confounded with Saint-Germain of 
Auxerre. 

The foundation of the abbey was in this wise. Childe- 
bert I. having made a second expedition against the Visi- 
goths in Spain, returned in 543 with much loot of various 
kinds. What could be more natural, in the Sixth Century, 
than to consult a holy man as to the future destination of 
such valuables ? Accordingly, Childebert communed with 
Saint-Germain on the subject, and the bishop, suggesting the 
foundation of a church as a fitting home for the treasures, 
the king laid the first stone amid the green fields and woods 
of what is now the densely populated Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
main. The church was originally dedicated to the Holy 
Cross and Saint-Vincent, the consecration taking place 

upon the very day of Childebert's death in 558. It was 

176 




SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES. 



SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRES 177 

cruciform in plan ; the roof, which was covered with 
plaques of gilt copper, was supported by enormous marble 
columns ; the walls decorated with paintings upon gold 
grounds, were pierced with numberless windows; and the 
pavement was laid in mosaic. At the end of the church 
was the chapel of Saint-Symphorien, which in 576 became 
the burial-place of good Bishop Germain, and was subse- 
quently the scene of many wondrous and miraculous cures. 
Before the foundation of Saint-Denis by le bon roy Dagohert^ 
Saint-Germain served as the burial-place of the Merovingian 
kings and their consorts. Thus, during the Sixth and 
Seventh Centuries, the following princes were interred 
there; the Kings Childebert I., Cherebert, Chilperic I., 
Clotaire XL, and Chilperic II., the Queens Ultrogothe, 
Fredegonde, Bertrude, and Bilihilde ; the sons of Merovee, 
Clovis, and Dagobert; the Princesses Chrodesinde and 
Chrotberge, daughters of the first Childebert. Some of these 
stone coffins may be seen at the Hotel Carnavalet. 

The only part of the church which contains any remains 
of Childebert's structure is the apse, into the triforium of 
which are built some early white marble capitals and some 
various coloured marble shafts ; but inasmuch as they have 
been painted over, all interest in them is destroyed. 

The earliest part of the present church dates from the 
beginning of the Eleventh Century, the choir and apse from 
the second half of the Twelfth Century. The best view of 
the apse with its flying-buttresses is to be obtained from the 
garden of the abbot's palace ; but since the clearing away 



178 PARIS 

of the houses which formerly were almost built on to the 
church, and the planting of gardens round it, the view is 
very picturesque from any point. An insignificant Seven- 
teenth Century porch leads to the west door, which is un- 
derneath the tower, and has in its upper tympanum, a 
much mutilated bas-relief of The Last Supper. The tower 
has been so much restored and renovated from time to time 
that little of the original remains. It has a high, but 
stumpy spire covered with slates. Of the other two 
towers, which were formerly at the angles of the choir and 
transepts, nothing remains but the bases, which were con- 
sidered necessary for the support of the church. 

The building is two hundred and sixty-five feet long, 
sixty-five feet broad, and fifty-nine feet high. The nave is 
divided into five bays j the choir into four, and the apse 
into five ; but these latter are much narrower than those of 
the nave. In the Seventeenth Century, the timber roof of 
Abbot Morard gave place to a stone vault, the transepts 
were rebuilt, and the nave much altered ; but quite recently 
it has been restored to its primitive condition and decorated 
with frescoes by Hippolyte Flandrin. The church having 
been used during the Revolution as a saltpetre manufactory, 
the corrosive waters had so undermined the foundations of 
the pillars that they were obliged to be supported by 
enormous scaffoldings while the bases were repaired. 

The choir and the apse were surrounded by square and 
polygonal chapels. The lower arches are round, the upper 
pointed j the intermingling being in no way inharmonious. 



SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRES 179 

Most of the present capitals are copies of the twelve re- 
maining original ones which were transferred to the garden 
of the Hotel de Cluny ; but they are of very inferior work- 
manship. The old capitals are rough, but full of character, 
whereas the modern ones are utterly devoid thereof. A 
few old ones may be studied embedded in the walls of the 
aisles. The choir, beautiful in its vigorous simplicity, re- 
mains as the Twelfth Century left it. It was dedicated by 
Pope Alexander III., on the 21st of April, 1163; and on 
the same day Hubald, bishop of Ostia, assisted by three 
other bishops, consecrated the apsidal chapels. On enter- 
ing the church at the west end, and looking toward the 
altar, it will be seen that the building deviates considerably 
from a straight line. Saint Etienne du Mont is even more 
out of a straight line — it turns more than any church I have 
seen. The columns resemble those of Notre-Dame in their 
massiveness. All the arches of the choir and chapels are 
round, but those of the apse and clerstory are pointed. 
The capitals of these choir pillars are all worthy of study, 
being in the best style of the period, and full of the quaint 
symbolism of the Middle Ages ; human heads of a grotesque 
style, lions, harpies, birds pecking vigorously at the heads 
of men and women, griffins, and winged animals. The 
bases are all ornamented with foliage ; but between the 
second and third chapels on the south side is an example of 
ornament which is probably unique, viz, two slippers, one 
embroidered and one plain, evidently those of a bishop or 
abbot. 



i8o PARIS 

The original High Altar, renovated in 1704, has been 
destroyed since 1792, up to which time it had existed in all 
its pristine beauty and splendour. The tomb of Saint-Ger- 
main, which was the scene of so many miracles and won- 
ders, has been suppressed and covered up by the pavement. 
It was sunk below the level of tlic church, near the fourth 
column of the choir on the north side, and for centuries 
was a favourite spot for prayer and meditation. The chapel 
of Saint-Symphorien, at the end of the nave on the south 
side, is modern, having been consecrated by the great 
teacher, Saint-Francois de Sales, on the 27th of April, 
1619; the monument which marked the first burial-place 
of Saint-Germain being no longer in it. The chapels of 
Saint-Marguerite and of Saint-Casmir, in the transept, are 
ornamented with marble columns. That of the Blessed 
Virgin is modern, and in wretched taste ; and the High 
Altar, the first stone of which was laid by Pius VII., is 
equally out of keeping with the rest of the church. 

In an apsidal chapel are some fragments of Thirteenth 
Century glass, representing Saints Anna and Joachim, The 
Annunciation and the Marriage of the Virgin. In the south 
side of the nave is a large marble statue, called Notre- 
Dame la Blanche, given in 1340 by Jeanne d'Evreux to 
the Abbey of Saint-Denis. Placed at the Revolution in 
the Musee des Petits-Augustins, it was afterward trans- 
ferred to Saint-Germain. The marble statue of Saint- 
Marguerite is by one of the brothers of the convent, 
Jacques Bourletj and that representing Saint-Francois 



SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRES 181 

Xavier is by Coustou the younger. The following tombs 
were partially restored in 1824: Jean Casimir, King of 
Poland, who, having renounced his throne, became abbot 
in 1669, and died in 1672 (the kneeling figure is by 
Marsy, the bas-relief by Jean Thibaut, of the Congregation 
of Saint Maur) ; Olivier and Louis de Castellan, killed in 
the service of the king in 1664 and 1669 (the figures and 
medallions are by Girardon) ; William Douglas, eighteenth 
earl of Angus, who died in 161 1, and his grandson, James 
Douglas, killed in 1645, near Douai, aged twenty-eight. 
The epitaphs, which the Academy set up in 18 19 to the 
memory of Nicholas Boileau, of Rene Descartes, of Jean 
Mabillion, and of Bernard de Montfaucon, which were 
formerly at the Musee des Petits-Augustins, were placed 
here on the disposal of that museum. Boileau reposed 
formerly in the Sainte-Chapelle, and Descartes at Sainte- 
Genevieve. What remained of the royal tombs was trans- 
ferred to Saint Denis. Of the riches of the Treasury 
nothing whatever was saved ; it was all pillaged and dis- 
persed. 

The whole church has been painted in polychrome ; red 
shafts and gilded capitals, a blue-and-gold starred vault. 
All round the nave, transepts, and choir, just below the 
clerstory, are the exquisite frescoes by Flandrin. 



SAINT-SULPICE 

S. SOPHIA BE ALE 

• i "^ 7'ONDER majestic portico forms the west front 
V' of the church called Saint Sulpice. 

"^ It is at once airy and grand. There are two 

tiers of pillars, of which this front is composed ; the lower 
is Doric, the upper Ionic; and each row, as I am told, is 
nearly forty French feet in height, exclusively of their en- 
tablatures, each of ten feet. We have nothing like this, 
certainly, as the front of a parish church, in London. 
When I except Saint Paul's, such exception is made in 
reference to the most majestic piece of architectural com- 
position which, to my eye, the wit of man hath yet ever 
devised. The architect of the magnificent front of Saint- 
Sulpice was Servandoni ; and a street hard by (in which 
Dom Brial, the father of French history resides) takes its 
name from the architect. There are two towers — one at 
each end of this front, about two hundred and twenty feet 
in height from the pavement ; harmonizing well with the 
general style of architecture, but of which that to the south 
(to the best of my recollection) is left in an unaccountably 
if not shamefully unfinished state. These towers are said 
to be about one toise higher than those of Notre-Dame. 

The interior of this church is hardly less imposing than its 

182 




SAINT-SULPICE. 



SAINT-SULPICE 183 

exterior. The vaulted roofs are exceedingly lofty ; but, 
for the length of the nave, and more especially the choir, 
the transepts are disproportionally short, nor are there suf- 
ficiently prominent ornaments to give relief to the massive 
appearance of the sides. These sides are decorated by 
fluted pilasters of the Corinthian order, which for so large 
and lofty a building have a tame effect. There is nothing 
like the huge, single, insulated column, or the clustered 
slim pilasters, that separate the nave from the side aisles of 
the Gothic churches of the early and middle ages. 

" The principal altar between the nave and the choir is 
admired for its size and grandeur of effect, but it is cer- 
tainly ill-placed j it is perhaps too ornamental, looking like 
a detached piece which does not harmonize with the sur- 
rounding objects. Indeed, most of the altars in French 
churches want simplicity and appropriate effect, and the 
whole of the interior of the choir is (to my fastidious eye 
only, you may add) destitute of that quiet solemn character 
which ought always to belong to places of worship. Rich, 
minute and elaborate as are many of the Gothic choirs of 
our own country, they are yet in harmony and equally free 
from a frivolous and unappropriate effect. Behind the 
choir is the chapel of Our Lady, which is certainly most 
splendid and imposing. Upon the ceiling is represented 
the Assumption of the Virgin, and the walls are covered 
with a profusion of gilt ornament, which, upon the whole, 
has a very striking effect. In a recess above the altar is a 
sculptured representation of the Virgin and Infant Christ in 



i84 PARIS 

white marble, of a remarkably high polish ; nor are the 
countenances of the mother and child divested of sweetness 
of expression. They are represented upon a large globe, 
or with the world at their feet ; upon the top of which, 
slightly coiled, lies the 'bruised' or dead serpent. The 
light in front of the spectator, from a concealed window (a 
contrivance to which the French seem partial), produces a 
sort of magical effect. I should add that this is the largest 
parochial church in Paris, and that its organ has been pro- 
nounced to be matchless. 

" This magnificent structure is the production of several 
periods and of several artists. Anne of Austria laid the 
foundation stone in 1636, under the superintendence of 
Levau. Levau died shortly afterward, and was succeeded 
by Gittard and Oppenard. The finish was received by 
Servandoni, who, in the west front, or portico, left all his 
predecessors far behind him. The church was dedicated 
about the middle of the last century. The towers are the 
joint performances of Maclaurin and Chalgrin ; but the 
latter has the credit of having rectified the blunders of the 
former. He began his labours in 1777; but both the 
south tower, and the Place^ immediately before the west 
front, want their finishing decorations." 

I have quoted this long dissertation by Dibden because I 
do not think a better description of the church could be 
given ; but the writer is wrong in some of his details. The 
church was commenced in 1646, not '36, the first architect 
being Christophe Gamart. The finishing stroke was put 



SAINT-SULPICE 185 

by Jean Servandoni, the funds being provided by means of 
a lottery started by the energetic cure Languet de Gergy, 
I cannot endorse Dibden's praise of the chapel of the 
Virgin by De Wailly, the surrounding paintings by Vanloo, 
and the Slodtz brothers' decorations. It is all very splendid 
Vi^ith gold and marbles, and the statue by Pajou is looked 
upon as a chef-d'ceuvre. The cupola, with an Assumption 
painted by Lemoine, is graceful ; but the effect of light is 
theatrical to the last degree, and the vi^hole chapel is v^ant- 
ing in dignity and the religious feeling without which a 
building fails as a Christian church. Another statue of the 
Virgin, a Notre-Dame des Douleurs, by Bouchardon, a 
great tomb of the cure Languet de Gregy, by Michel-Ange 
Slodtz, and the pulpit given in 1788 by the Marechal de 
Richelieu, are all very grandiose, but fail utterly to impress 
one; whereas the two shells serving as holy-water stoops, 
given to Francois I. by the Republic of Venice, are charm- 
ing examples of pure Renaissance sculpture. The general 
effect of the church, by its enormous size alone, is exceed- 
ingly grand; but, being entirely of stone, it is cold and 
colourless. 

In the west chapel, dedicated to the souls in Purgatory, 
are pictures by Heim ; and in other chapels, works by Abel 
de Pujol, Vichon, Lafon, A. Hesse, Drolling, and Guille- 
mont. In the crypt, used as a chapel for catechizing, are 
the statues of Saint-Paul and Saint-John Evangelist, by 
Pradier. 

Although there are no remains of an earlier building, 



i86 PARIS 

there was a parish church upon the same site as Saint- 
Sulpice as early as the Twelfth Century ; this was enlarged 
under Louis XII. and Francois I. 

A brass slab incrusted in the pavement of the south 
transept indicates the meridian in a direct line toward the 
north — an obelisk. When the weather is fine, the midday 
sun shines through a little opening in the window of the 
south transept, and strikes the middle of the plaque in 
summer, and the top of the obelisk in the winter solstice. 
This meridian was established in 1743 by Henri Sully and 
Lemonnier, to fix the spring equinox and Easter Day. 




THE INVALIDES. 



LES INVALIDES 

PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 

THE dome of the Pantheon attracts the eye simply 
by its own architectural beauty ; but that of the 
Invalides, by Mansard, is lustrous with abundant 
gilding, and on a sunny day shines over Paris with the most 
brilliant effect. It is splendid against one of those cerulean 
skies that are still possible in the capital of France. Cer- 
tainly nothing does so much for the splendour of a great 
city as very conspicuous gilding. There are drives in 
Paris, as, for instance, from the Trocadero to the Place de 
la Concorde, during which the dome of the Invalides 
accompanies you like a harvest-moon. On a nearer 
approach it is the architecture that claims attention. The 
dome itself is fine, but in many respects the building as a 
whole is greatly inferior to the Pantheon. Soufflot made 
the body of his church an ample base for his dome in 
every direction ; but at the Invalides one receives the 
impression of a man with a prodigious head on a small body 
and very narrow shoulders. The columns of the dome are 
in couples, with projecting masses doing the work of 
buttresses. This gives more light and shade than the 
simple colonnade of the Pantheon, but not such beautiful 
perspective, as the projections interfere with it. The com- 

»87. 



i88 PARIS 

position of the front makes us feel strongly the special 
merits of the Pantheon. Instead of the majestic columns 
of Soufflot's work, his rich pediment, and the massive 
plain walls on each side as margin, we have in the Invalides 
a poor little pediment reduced to still more complete insig- 
nificance by the obtrusive windows, etc., on each side of it. 
Again, the front of the Invalides offers an example of that 
vice in Renaissance architecture which Soufflot avoided, — 
the superposition of different orders. It is divided into two 
stories, Roman Doric below and Corinthian above, a 
variety that the Renaissance architects enjoyed, though it 
does not seem more desirable than two languages in one 
poem. 

This criticism does not affect either the beauty of 
Mansard's dome as a fine object seen from a distance, or 
the importance of the interior, one of the most im- 
pressive in all Paris, especially since it has become the 
mausoleum of Napoleon I. 

A lofty dome, supported by massive piers perforated with 
narrow arched passages and faced with Corinthian columns 
and pilasters, a marble floor of extraordinary richness and 
beauty everywhere, all round the base of the dome a stair 
of six marble steps descending to the circular space under 
it, and in the midst of this space a great opening or well, 
with a diameter of more than seventy feet, and a marble 
parapet, breast-high, for the safety of the visitors who look 
down into it, — such is the first impression of the interior. 

Not only do people invariably look down, but they gen- 



LES INVALIDES 189 

erally gaze for a long time, as if they expected something 
to occur; yet a more unchanging spectacle could not be 
imagined. In the middle there is a great sarcophagus of 
polished red Russian granite, and twelve colossal statues 
stand under the parapet, all turning their grave, impassible 
faces toward the centre. They are twelve Victories whose 
names have resounded through the world, and in the spaces 
between them are sheaves of standards taken in battle, and 
in the red sarcophagus lies the body of Napoleon. 

The idea of this arrangement is due to the architect 
Visconti, who had to solve the problem how to arrange a 
tomb of such overwhelming importance without hiding the 
architecture of so noble an interior as this. His solution 
was admirably successful. The arrangement does not 
interfere in the slightest degree with the architecture of the 
edifice, which would have been half hidden by a colossal 
tomb on its own floor; while we have only to look over the 
parapet to be impressed with the grandeur and poetic 
suitableness of the plan. With our customs of burial we 
are all in the habit of looking down into a grave before it is 
filled up, and the impressiveness of Napoleon's tomb is 
greatly enhanced by our downward gaze. We feel that, 
notwithstanding all this magnificence, we are still looking 
down into a grave, — a large grave with a sarcophagus in it 
instead of a coffin, but a grave nevertheless. The serious 
grandeur, the stately order of this arrangement seems to 
close appropriately the most extraordinary career in history ; 
and yet it is impossible to look upon the sarcophagus with- 



190 PARTS 

out the most discouraging reflections. The most splendid 
tomb in Europe is the tomb of the most selfish, the most 
culpably ambitious, the most cynically unscrupulous of 
men ; and the sorrowful reflection is that if he had been 
honourable, unselfish, unwilling to injure others, he would 
have died in comparative or total obscurity, and these 
prodigious, posthumous honours would never have been 
bestowed upon his memory. 



^f^ 




HOTEL DES INVALIDES 

V, DE SWJRTE 

VARIOUS kings, notably Charles VII., Louis XII., 
Francois I., Henri II., and Charles IX., had the 
intention to found a final shelter for old invalid 
soldiers ; Louis XL was the first to grant them pensions. 
Henry III., in 1575, organized a house for them called the 
Christian Charity and gave them the pensions of lay 
monks. 

Henri IV. added another house in the Rue de I'Oursine, 
in 1597, and endowed it with the product of the fines and 
confiscations arising from abuses and malversations. This 
only existed until 1597, when the houses for invalids were 
suppressed and the latter were again sent to the monasteries 
as lay monks. In 1633, Louis XIII. by edict founded 
the Commandery of Saint-Louis, the works of which were 
brusquely interrupted in 1635. Louis XIV. took up this 
plan again and completed it. The edict of April, 1674, 
" perpetual and irrevocable," runs thus : " We found 
. . . the said Hotel that we have entitled the In- 
valides, which we cause to be built at the end of the Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain in our good city of Paris, for the 
lodging, subsistence and entertainment of all the poor of- 
ficers and soldiers of our troops who have been or are dis- 
abled, or who, having grown old in service, are no longer 

191 



192 PARIS 

able to do anything." For the endowment of the house 
with sufficient and assured revenues, the king gives it for- 
ever " the two deniers per livre of all payments that shall 
be made by the treasurers-general, ordinary and extraor- 
dinary of war;" and in addition "the deniers accruing 
from the pensions and the places of the lay monks of abbeys 
and priories " in which it was usual and obligatory to receive 
lay monks. The religious chapters that were thus taxed 
vainly tried to resist : they had too often complained of the 
gross manners and of the conduct of the lay monks to be 
able decently to resist the royal will. The works, more- 
over, had been begun four years before. 

It was intended to shelter 6,000 invalids, but that num- 
ber was not reached and the buildings barely sufficed for 
4,000 pensioners. The endowment was rich, and in 1789 
the revenue amounted to 1,700,000 livres. After the war 
of the Spanish Succession, space failed and many invalids 
were outside pensioners. Abuses multiplied ; the great 
lords lodged their old lackeys at the Invalides, even those 
who had never borne arms, to the detriment of real invalids. 
The Comte de Saint-Germain fought against these favours. 
The Revolution laid the expenses of the institution to the 
State's charge. 

The considerable number of wounded and infirm that 
were the consequence of the wars of the Revolution and 
the Empire forced Napoleon I. to create branches of this 
establishment at Versailles, Avignon, and Ghent. In 18 12, 
the invalids numbered 26,000. The period of peace that 



HOTEL DES INVALIDES 193 

followed allowed of the suppression of these branches suc- 
cessively and the preservation for the invalids only of the 
building of that name, which now is not even entirely oc- 
cupied by them. ' 

The organization of the Hotel is entirely military ; its 
command is entrusted to a brigadier-general seconded by a 
number of officers in proportion to the effective of pensioners. 
This personnel, including the necessary doctors, is com- 
posed exclusively of retired officers. The Administration 
is by a council of surveillance whose agents are taken from 
the active army ; this council takes constant action in the 
management. An almoner, hospital sisters and several 
civil employes are also attached to the Hotel. In a word, 
every precaution is taken to secure to the invalids all the 
necessary care appropriate to their condition and their old 
rank. For admission, before all it is necessary to have re- 
tired on a pension and to be of irreproachable conduct and 
morality. The other conditions are: ist, to have lost the 
sight, or one or more limbs, or to be afflicted with infirmi- 
ties equivalent to the loss of a limb ; 2d, to be at least 
sixty years of age ; at seventy, admission is a right. Dur- 
ing their abode at the Hotel, the invalids, in addition to 
their food and clothing, receive a payment proportionate to 
their old rank, and their pension is suspended. Each in- 
mate may renounce the privilege of his admission and re- 
sume the enjoyment of his pension, as he may also reenter 
the Hotel after having voluntarily left it. The invalids are 
organized in divisions ; the military service is performed by 



194 PARIS 

them exclusively. The number of invalids entertained at 
the Hotel depends upon the annual credit allowed by the 
Chambers for that purpose. At present the number is 
greatly restricted on account of the absence of great wars. 
Many people share Montesquieu's opinion : " The 
Hotel des Invalides is the most admirable place on earth. 
If I had been a prince, I would rather have created that es- 
tablishment than have won three battles." 



THE INSTITUTE 

ERNEST RENJN 

THE Institute is one of the most glorious creations 
of the Revolution, and something quite peculiar 
to France. Many countries have academies that 
may rival our own in the illustriousness of their members 
and the importance of their works ; France alone has an 
Institute where all the efforts of the human mind are bound 
together in a sheaf, where the poet, the philosopher, the 
historian, the philologist, the critic, the mathematician, the 
physicist, the astronomer, the naturalist, the economist, the 
lawyer^ the sculptor, the painter and the musician may call 
themselves brethren. 

Two ideas absorbed the minds of the simple and great 
men who conceived the plan of this entirely novel founda- 
tion : the first, admirably true, was that all the productions 
of the human mind maintain their solidarity by one an- 
other; the other, which is more open to criticism but is 
still great and in any case proceeds from what is most pro- 
found in the French spirit, is that the sciences, letters and 
arts, are an affair of the State, a matter that every nation 
produces in its own body and which it is the country's duty 
to provoke, to encourage and to recompense. The last day 
but one of the Convention (October 25th, 1795), appeared 

195 



196 PARIS 

the law that was destined to realize this idea that was so 
full of future. The object of the Institute is the progress 
of science, general utility, and the glory of the Republic. 
Every year it renders an account to the legislative body of 
the progress it has accomplished. It has its budget, its col- 
lections and its prizes. It has missions to entrust, and 
scientific and literary establishments to patronize. For the 
formation of the original nucleus of its members, it was 
decided that the executive Directoire should name forty- 
eight persons, or a third of the encumbents, and that these 
should nominate the other two-thirds by ballot. Three 
men in particular helped in tracing these great lines, to 
which the Institute must return whenever it wishes to re- 
new its youth ; these were Lakanal, Daunou, and Carnot. 
Unfortunately at that moment France was in the condition 
of a sick man who issues exhausted from an attack of 
fever. Entire branches of human culture had been swept 
away. The moral, political and philosophical sciences were 
profoundly abased. Literature was almost null. Historical 
and philological science counted only two eminent men ; — 
Silvestre de Sacy and d'Ansse de Villoison. In revenge, 
the physical and mathematical sciences were in one of the 
most glorious periods of their development. The divisions 
of the Institute into classes and sections felt this condition 
of things. The classes were three in number. The first 
corresponded exactly to the present Acad'einie des Sciences and 
presented almost the same sections as the latter. The 
second was called the class of the moral and political 



THE INSTITUTE 197 

sciences. It corresponded to the Acad'emie which to-day 
bears the same name and a small section of our Acad'emie 
des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. The third class was called 
" Litt'erature et Beaux- Arts." It embraced what we now call 
the Academic Fran^aise^ the Academic des Beaux-Arts and the 
greatest part of the Acad'emie des Inscriptions. The great 
fault of this division was in not admitting the existence of 
the historical sciences. To tell the truth, there was some 
excuse for those who were responsible for it, since at that 
time those sciences scarcely existed in France. The his- 
torical sciences imply ancient traditions, a refined and, to a 
certain point, an aristocratic society. On the other hand, 
philosophy is not self-controlling and will not admit of 
classification. Something in the nature of the scholar and 
smelling of the pedagogue presided over all this primitive 
distribution. The second class had a section called : 
"Analysis of Sensations and Ideas." Six persons were 
always occupied in this difficult labour. The third class 
comprised eight sections that were called Grammar, An- 
cient Languages, Poetry, Antiquities and Monuments, 
Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, and Declamation. 
This primitive organization lasted for six years. Various 
regulations successively were added to complete it. The 
law of April 4th, 1796, regulated the mode of election; 
there were three degrees. The sections made presentations 
to the classes, the latter made them to the entire Institute 
which finally voted upon them. One could not be a mem- 
ber of several classes at the same time. The right of 



198 PARIS 

presentation for vacancies in all the great Schools of the 
State was given to the corresponding classes. Finally, by 
this same law, the continuation of the great collections be- 
gun under the regime by the Acad'emie des Sciences and the 
Acad'emie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres devolved upon 
the Institute. It was thought that in a society where 
everything had been rendered individual and of mere life 
interest out of hatred for the ancient populations, the In- 
stitute alone possessed sufficient continuity to accept the 
heritage of these great works ; a just and fruitful idea, for 
which the chief honour must be given to Camus. 

However, the First Consul regarded with an unfriendly 
eye a free body, limited to pure speculation, it is true, but 
moving without limits or fetters in the vast field of matters 
of the mind. Various sensible defects, moreover, had mani- 
fested themselves in the original plan. On January 23d, 
1803, a new organization, inspired by Chaptal, modified 
the work of the Convention. The First Consul's appro- 
bation was necessary for every election. The number of 
classes was increased to four. The first corresponded to 
our Acad'emie des Sciences ; the second (French language and 
literature) to the Academic Franfaise ; the third (Ancient 
history and literature) to our Academic des Inscriptions; 
and the fourth to the Academic des Beaux-Arts. In many 
respects, this division was preferable to that of 1795. 
Under a still sorry form, it created a place for the historical 
sciences. It destroyed the incongruous agglomeration of 
specialties that were unconnected with each other which 



THE INSTITUTE 199 

the law of 1795 had established under the name of the 
third class. In the class of French language and literature, 
and in that of ancient history and literature, the interior 
sections, always fatal to learned bodies, were suppressed. 
The creation of perpetual secretaries gave more continuity 
to the work. The continuation of the diplomatic collec- 
tions, a legacy from the old regime and particularly from the 
learned Congregation de Saint-Maur, devolved upon the 
third class. But in other respects, the general spirit of this 
new organization was very narrow. The political and 
moral sciences were separated from the labours of the In- 
stitute. The first class only had the right to occupy itself 
with the sciences " In their relations with history." We 
feel the systematic intention of discrowning the human 
mind and reducing literature to puerile rhetorical exercises. 

The physical and mathematical sciences preserved the 
superiority that was assured to them by such men as La- 
place, Lagrange, Monge, and Berthollet. But the literary 
and philosophic nullity became deplorable j while the his- 
torical sciences on their side developed in a laborious man- 
ner. That was the fault of the times rather than that of 
the government. The latter took the initiative in various 
useful foundations. The continuation of the Histoire 
litteraire de la France^ a precious collection begun by the 
Benedictines, was decreed in 1807 on the proposal of M. 
de Champagny. 

The organization of the Institute, inaugurated in 1803, 
lasted until 18 16. On the 21st of March in that year, an 



200 PARIS 

ordinance of King Louis XVIII. struck the Institute of 
the Convention a much graver blow than that of 1803. 
Being a Revolutionary foundation, the Institute was dis- 
pleasing to the exalted men of the time. For a moment 
there was some thought of suppressing it and reestablishing 
the Academies of the old regime. The party of concilia- 
tion prevailed. "The protection that the Kings our an- 
cestors have constantly granted to science and letters has 
always made us consider with particular interest the various 
establishments that they founded to honour those who cul- 
tivated them. Therefore we have not been able without 
sorrow to look upon the fall of those Academies that so 
powerfully contributed to the prosperity of letters and the 
foundation of which was a title of glory for our august 
predecessors. Since the time when they were reestablished 
under a new denomination, we have seen with a lively 
satisfaction the consideration and renown that the Institute 
has earned in Europe. Immediately Divine Providence 
recalled us to the throne of our fathers, our intention was 
to maintain and protect this learned company j but we 
have thought it proper to restore its primitive name to each 
of the classes in order to bind their past glory to that which 
they have acquired, and to remind them at the same time 
of what they succeeded in doing during difficult times and 
what we should expect of them in happier days." 

That is very fine language and seems to carry us very 
far from the paltry work of Chaptal and the First Consul. 
Unhappily, Louis XVIII. 's government belied its apparent 



THE INSTITUTE 201 

moderation, and under the pretext of reconstituting the 
Institute did it the greatest violence it had ever suffered. 
Until that time there had never been but one cancellation 
of a member of the Institute, that of Carnot, pronounced 
with deplorable levity after the Seventeenth Fructidor and 
soon repairedo When the First Consul had suppressed the 
class of political and moral sciences he had not deprived 
anybody of the title of Member of the Institute. All 
those who enjoyed that title in 1803 were distributed 
among the new classes established at that period. It was 
not so in 1816. Twenty-two persons, among whom were 
the painter David, the bishop Gregoire, Monge, Carnot, 
Lakanal, and Caesieyes, were deprived of the title that they 
honoured by their character or their works. This measure 
of vengeance and iniquity was instigated by the Comte de 
Vaublanc. In revenge, seventeen persons, by royal ordi- 
nance, received a title which has its full value only when it 
is given to a man of letters, or a savant, by the free suffrage 
of his peers. That was a sad beginning. It was not belied 
by what followed. The brilliant literary splendour of the 
time of the Restoration and the mighty awakening of those 
minds that made of this epoch the commencement of a new 
intellectual era for France should not make us forget the 
condition of inferiority in which science was kept under 
Louis XVIII. and Charles X. A kind of puerility in par- 
ticular struck the Academie that represented historical 
studies. The title of gentilhomme de la chamhre gained 
admission for a man among the erudite. It was not that 



202 PARIS 

the organization was bad. In reality, scarcely anything 
had been done but changing the name of two Academies. 
The class of French language and literature had become 
the Acad'em'ie Fran^aise ; the class of ancient history and 
literature had resumed the name, that was understood by 
very few people, of Acad'emie des Inscriptions et Belles- 
Letters. 

The Academies had their individual regulations and were 
more distinct. The great unity of the Institute, according 
to the dream of the Convention, had been broken since 
1803; perhaps it was an impossible conception. But the 
expulsions of 1816 cannot be pardoned. In the breast of 
several of the Academies, especially the Acad'emie des In- 
scriptions et Belles-Lettres^ the political and religious 
prejudices of the day, moreover, reigned with great intol- 
erance. Precious qualities of the mind were employed in 
intrigues. The most ridiculously incompetent influences 
were exercised to the knowledge of all. The Due de 
Berry and the Due d'Angouleme had their candidates. 
The institution of free members created the germ of great 
difficulties for the future. The interest of serious studies 
was the smallest care of academicians who were men of 
the world and who saw in their nomination especially the 
privilege of wearing a sword and an embroidered coat. 

The revolution of 1830 brought better days. Certainly 
if literary vengeance was ever committed it was after the 
Journees de juillet. The legitimist party had enormously 
abused its powers. It had shown itself haughty, narrow, 



THE INSTITUTE 203 

and malevolent. Although vanquished in public it re- 
mained in the majority in almost all the Academies. With 
very good reason the government of King Louis Philippe 
relied on time and on its own intention of w^ell directing 
matters of the mind for conquering these survivors of a 
fallen regime. 

It neither took away from nor conferred on anybody the 
title of Member of the Institute. But, careful to attach 
men of merit to itself and skillful in its treatment of lit- 
erary and scientific affairs, in the various Academies it had 
soon by legitimate means conquered the influence that it 
would have vainly demanded by cancellations or intru- 
sions. 

From 1830 to 1848 the Institute did nothing but in- 
crease. The Academies of sciences, drawn by M. Arago 
into the ways of a perhaps exaggerated publicity, ac- 
quired an unusual importance. If, thereafter, journalism 
took up too much space, if that learned company chanced 
occasionally to gather together a Chamber of Deputies 
rather than an Academy, it must not be forgotten that it 
was by that means that it became the scientific centre 
of Europe. The Acad'emie des Inscriptions made much 
more undeniable progress. Eugene Burnouf and Letronne 
rivalled the most exact savants of Germany in method and 
sagacity. Augustin Thierry developed in his accomplished 
works his profound manner of understanding history. In 
the hands of Daunou, Fauriel, and especially that too true 
Benedictine of our century, M. Victor Le Clerc, the works 



204 PARIS 

of the Academic were conducted with a care and activity 
unknown until then. 

The government of 1848 continued the traditions of 
1830 toward the Institute. A few unimportant changes 
were introduced. The gravity of the social problems that 
were being agitated gave a certain importance to the 
Academy of moral and political science. We saw the 
worthy General Cavaignac in his simple conception of 
human affairs addressing himself to that Academic in order 
to obtain from it treatises to combat socialistic errors. Cer- 
tainly those little books, which have since been collected in 
one large volume, had not a single reader among those 
whom they were to convert. Thus was compromised the 
dignity of free knowledge which does not think of those 
applications, in struggles of another order, that are better 
pleased with expedients than with philosophy. 

The reactions that followed brought the Institute back to 
its peaceful labours. Perhaps internal activity was never 
greater than since 1852. Certain dangers that for a mo- 
ment threatened its dignity and independence were skill- 
fully conjured. Not so happily inspired as were the min- 
isters of 1830 and 1848, M. Fortoul tried to lay some re- 
strictions on the liberties of the Institute. As soon as the 
consequences of these measures were pointed out to the 
*Emperor, things were restored to their old condition. From 
this unfortunate attempt there only remained a new sec- 
tion added to the Academy of moral sciences, a section of 
which the need was not very apparent since it was 



THE INSTITUTE 205 

later merged in the other sections with the consent of the 
members. (Decree of May 9th, 1866.) Ten members 
were nominated by decree to fill the new places, which had 
not been known since the worst days of the Restoration. 

Such as it is, the Institute is one of the essential elements 
of intellectual work in France. The intellectual regwie of 
France could never be that of England, much less that of 
America or Germany. 

Our centralization does not allow of those numerous and 
powerful universities, which are academies and teaching 
bodies at the same time and from which the genius of Ger- 
many has drawn its greatest force. With us, science and 
teaching are different things, frequently even jealous and 
hostile. The regime of pure intellectual liberty of England 
and America would suit us even less. Besides creating for 
the country in which it is in operation a veritable inferiority 
in criticism, this regime has the drawback of offering too 
many facilities to charlatanism and foolishness. There is 
a true science and therefore it is necessary that there should 
be scientifical authority. It is in Germany that this authority 
exists in the highest degree ; there, charlatanism and ab- 
surdity are infallibly arrested at the first step. Among 
us, sufficiently serious mystifications may arise and succeed. 
The voice of serious science is sometimes very feeble 
against audacity and imposture. But the voice of science 
exists, and when the clamours in fashion have ceased, this 
voice continues to make itself heard and then nothing else 
is heard. That is the reason, in spite of the perpetual 



2o6 PARIS 

complaints of low opinion against the scientifical academies, 
why these academies always prevail in the end, because 
they are the guardians of the true method. They exist for 
a small number, but this small number is right, and it is 
only right that endures. 



CHAMP DE MARS 

G. LENOTRE 

I DO not think that in all the world there is a corner, 
even if it conceals gold or diamonds, that has been 
more moved, dug and trenched than the vast plain 
that stretches between the Ecole Militaire and the Seine 
and which since the reign of Louis XV. has been called the 
Champ de Mars. At a moment when it is passing through 
one of these decennial crises of its existence devoted to 
earthworks and slop-made palaces, it is curious to show it 
as it was originally, and an engraving of a hundred and fifty 
years ago is an interesting contrast to the present photo- 
graphs of this busy point of Paris. 

Before the time of I'ficole Militaire, the Champ de Mars 
was nothing but a warren belonging to the abbey of Saint- 
Germain des Pres and by corruption it gave its name to the 
whole surrounding plain : from Garenne came Garnelle and 
then Grenelle. 

Do you remember having read in the history of France 
the name of Eudes, Count of Paris, who conquered the 
Normans who had come to seize the city ? Well, it was 
on the banks of the Seine, on the very spot where the Eiffel 
Tower stands to-day that the battle took place : a portion 
of land, leased to market-gardeners, preserved the name of 
Champ de la Victoire until 1770. Certainly, if the brave 

207 



2o8 PARIS 

Eudes could see the scene uf his exploits to-day, he would 
find it somewhat modified. 

The engraving, which dates from about 1760, is no less 
curious for the aspects of peaceful and almost desert country 
that it affords : Crenelle consists of a little chateau sur- 
rounded by farms ; the whole quarter between the Invalides 
and the Champ de Mars is en niarais^ or under cultivation. 
In the background winds the Seine between islands that to- 
day have disappeared j the He Macquerelle, — that in more 
elegant language was called the He des Mats et des 
Querclles. — Would not that be the origin of the name ? — 
where had been interred the victims of the massacre of Saint 
Bartholomew, some of whose bones were found in 1889, 
whilst digging the foundations of the Eiffel Tower. It was 
in this isle that the Triperie was to be found ; a document 
of 1780 states that there were washed "the intestines and 
tripe brought from the slaughter-houses and that there also 
was made the oil of tripe that was used for the r'everberes 
or city-lanterns." 

Next came the He aux Treilles, the He de Jerusalem, the 
He de Challyau (Chaillot), also called He aux Vaches, and 
lastly the He de Longchamp, which all formed the archi- 
pelago of the He aux Cygnes which itself was soon united 
with the mainland. 

At the epoch of the Revolution, one could almost reach 
it at various places without wetting one's feet : to-day it 
forms the Quai d'Orsay. 

The horizon of the Champ de Mars was shut in by the 



CHAMP DE MARS 209 

hills of Chaillot, and the old engraving shows the village of 
that name vi^ith its tv^^o convents of Bonshommes and the 
Visitation, which had been founded by Henriette de France 
and in which Mile, de La Valliere spent part of the time of 
her retreat. It was on the heights of Chaillot, on the very 
spot where the Palais du Trocadero stands to-day, that 
Napoleon laid the foundations of the Palace of the king of 
Rome. It was to be the most enormous and extraordinary 
monument in Paris. From the first floor of the edifice 
which was to have been raised upon three tiers, basements 
on the side of the Seine, the beautiful view of the Champ 
de Mars and its surrounding avenues would have been 
visible. To the east, close to the river, were to have been 
situated the State Archives, the Palais des arts, the Univer- 
site, the Palais of the Grand Master, the dwellings of the 
emeritus professors, savants, and celebrated men, who 
should have merited national gratitude by important services 
or by their talents ; to the west, was to have been a cavalry 
barracks and storehouses to serve as depots for salt, tobacco 
and other merchandise subject to the octroi. The entirety 
of the project of this singular Palais included in addition a 
military hospital, an infantry barracks, a slaughterhouse, 
houses of retreat and other monuments of public utility. 
The park of this eccentric residence would have been the 
Bois de Boulogne, connected with the Champ de Mars by 
broad avenues of big trees. 

But all that was only a dream that was dissipated by the 
tempest of Waterloo. 



210 PARIS 

Let us return to the Champ de Mars to which we are 
called by various memories of public festivals. The most 
important and the most celebrated of all is that of the fam- 
ous Federation of July 14th, 1790. This was perhaps the 
first festival which was at once political and popular ; until 
that time the people had only been admitted to rejoicings. 
On that day Paris desired to receive France in the Champ 
de Mars as to-day it receives the whole world there. 

The works to be accomplished were considerable : the 
plain had to be dug and a sloped embankment made all 
around it; a vast amphitheatre constructed and a bridge 
thrown across the river : — and there were only three weeks 
in which to accomplish these prodigies. When the rumour 
spread that the Champ de Mars would not be ready, the 
entire population of Paris transformed itself into labourers; 
and men and women, fashionables as well as poor devils, 
came armed with picks and shovels, the corporations, the 
national guards, the wardens of city companies, the invalids, 
the religious communities of both sexes, the Swiss Guards, 
the colleges, the sixty districts, the crafts, the pupils of the 
Academies, generally preceded by banners and groups of 
young girls, might all be seen arriving in long lines. The 
work was retarded by eight days, for nobody knew which 
way to turn, and people preferred to spend the time in 
fraternizing glass in hand rather than in turning over the 
earth ; nevertheless by miracle everything, if not ended, was 
at least redeemed in time, and the festival was able to be 
held on the day fixed, — under a driving and continuous rain 



CHAMP DE MARS 211 

that somewhat cooled the enthusiasm. How many other 
ptes there have been since that time ! 

In 1792, the y?/^ of Liberty; in 1793, the y?/^ for the 
Abolition of Slavery ; in 1794, the/?/^ of the Supreme Be- 
ing; in 1798, the funeral y?^^ for the death of Hoche ; then 
fetes for the children of the fatherland, for the anniversaries 
of the Republic, for the consecration of the Emperor, 
National, Napoleonic, and Bourbon fetes^ distributions of 
tricolour flags, eagles, white flags and oaths to how many 
constitutions ! Our history has passed there. 



SUNRISE AND SUNSET FROM THE TROC- 
ADERO 

£MILE ZOLA 

ON this morning Paris assumed a smiling laziness in 
awaking. A mist that followed the valley of 
the Seine had obscured the two banks. It was 
a light, almost milky vapour that the sun, growing grad- 
ually stronger, illuminated. Nothing of the city could be 
distinguished beneath that floating muslin, the hue of the 
dawn. In the hollows, the thick cloud deepened into a 
bluish tint, while upon the broad spaces, transparencies 
were made of golden dust through which one divined the 
background of the streets ; and, much higher, the domes 
and spires pierced the fog, with thin grey silhouettes still 
wrapped in the fragments of the fog which they penetrated. 
Every now and then streamers of yellow smoke detached 
themselves as if by the heavy flap of some gigantic bird's 
wing, and then melted into the air that seemed to swallow 
them. And, above this immensity and this cloud descend- 
ing and sleeping over Paris, a very pure sky, of a pale blue, 
almost white, stretched its deep vault. The sun rose in a 
dust softened by the rays. A light cloud, of the vague 
paleness of infancy, broke into rain, filling the space 
with its tepid quivering. It was a feast, the sovereign 
peace and tender gaiety of the infinite, during which the 




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oi 
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SUNRISE AND SUNSET 213 

city, shot through with golden arrows, lazy and drowsy, 
could not make up her mind to show herself beneath her 
lace. . . . 

At the horizon long tremours ran over this sleeping lake. 
Then suddenly the lake appeared to burst ; slits appeared, 
and from one end to the other, there was a crack that an- 
nounced the breaking up. The sun, now higher, in the 
triumphant glory of its rays, attacked the fog victoriously. 
Little by little ,the large lake seemed to dry up, as if some 
invisible drain had emptied its contents. The mists, so 
deep a little while ago, became thinner and transparent, as- 
suming the bright colours of the rainbow. All the left 
bank was of a tender blue, slowly deepening into nearly 
violet, on the side of the Jardin des Plantes. On the 
right bank, the qiiartier des Tuileries had the pale rose of 
flesh-coloured cloth, while toward Montmartre, it was like 
the glow from burning coals, carmine flaming into gold ; 
then, very far away, the manufacturing faubourgs deepened 
into a tone of brick-red, gradually becoming duller and 
passing into the bluish-grey of slate. One could not yet 
distinguish the city, trembling and evasive, like one of 
those submarine depths that the eye divines through the 
clear waters, with their terrifying forests of tall grass, their 
swirls of horror, and their dimly-seen monsters. How- 
ever, the waters continued to abate. They were now 
nothing more than fine spread out muslin ; and one by one 
these gossamers disappeared and Paris became clearer and 
rose from its dream. 



214 PARIS 

Not a breath of air had passed, it was like an evocation. 
The last piece of gauze detached itself, ascended, and 
melted into air. And the city lay without a cloud beneath 
the vanquishing sun. 

The sun, sinking toward the slopes of Meudon, came 
to scatter the last images and to glow resplendent. A glory 
flamed through the azure. On the distant horizon, the 
slopes of the chalky rocks that barred the remote Charen- 
ton and Choisy-le-Roi were piled with blocks of carmine 
edged with bright lake ; the flotilla of little clouds floated 
slowly in the blue above Paris, and covered it with veils of 
purple; while the thin network, the mesh of white silk, 
that stretched above Montmartre, suddenly appeared to be 
made of golden gauze, whose regular spaces were ready to 
catch the stars as they rose. And beneath this glowing 
arch, the city spread out all yellow and streaked with long 
shadows. Below, the cabs and omnibuses crossed along the 
avenues, in the midst of an orange dust, through the crowd 
of pedestrians whose swarming blackness was yellowed 
and illuminated by drops of light. A seminary, in close 
file, which followed the Quay de Billy, made a tail of 
ochre-coloured soutanes in the diffused light. Then, car- 
riages and foot-passengers disappeared ; in the distance one 
could only distinguish far away, on some bridge, a file of 
equipages with glittering lamps. To the left, the high 
chimneys of the Manutention, erect and rosy, disgorged 
huge wreaths of soft smoke, as delicate in tint as flesh; 
while on the other side of the river, the beautiful elms of 



SUNRISE AND SUNSET 215 

the Quay d'Orsay made a sombre mass, perforated with 
sunlight. The Seine, between its banks where the oblique 
rays fell, rolled its dancing waves where blue, yellow, and 
green broke in variegated spray ; but higher up the river 
this painting of an oriental sea assumed a gold tone more 
and more dazzling, and one might have called it an ingot 
taken from some invisible crucible at the horizon, enlarg- 
ing itself with a play of bright colours in proportion as it 
cooled. Against this brilliant, flowing water, the arches 
of the ladder-like bridges looked slenderer than ever and 
cast grey bars which were merged among the fiery heap of 
houses, above which the two towers of Notre-Dame flamed 
like torches. To right and left the buildings flamed. The 
windows of the Palais d'Industrie, in the midst of the 
groves of the Champs Elysees, glowed like a bed of burning 
coals; farther away, behind the flattened roof of the 
Madeleine, the enormous mass of the Opera seemed a 
block of copper; and the other edifices, the cupolas and 
towers, the Colonne Vendome, Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, the 
Tour Saint-Jacques, and nearer the pavilions of the new 
Louvre and the Tuileries, crowned with flames and erect- 
ing at each crossway a gigantic pyre. The dome of the 
Invalides was on fire, so glowing that one might expect to 
see it break open at any minute and cover the whole quar- 
ter with sparks from its timber-work. Beyond the unequal 
towers of Saint-Sulpice, the Pantheon was outlined on the 
sky with a heavy splendour like a royal palace of fire which 
was being consumed in a furnace. Then as the sun sank 



2i6 PARIS 

the whole of Paris illuminated itself with the pyres of its 
buildings. Lights ran along the crests of the roofs, while 
in the valleys the black smoke slept. All the facades fac- 
ing the Trocadcro reddened as they threw out from their 
glittering windows a shower of sparks that rose from the 
city as if some bellows ceaslessly kept this colossal forge 
in activity. Sheaves of flame constantly burst from the 
neighbouring quarters, where the streets were hollowed 
out, dark and burnt. Even in the distances of the plain 
in the depths of the red ashes that buried the faubourgs, 
destroyed but still warm, gleamed the lost sparks leaping 
from some suddenly-revived hearth. Soon it became a 
furnace. Paris was burning. The sky grew more and 
more purple, the clouds rolled with red and gold above the 
immense city. 



The Right Bank 



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RIGHT P.ANK: FROM HKRCJY J (j H(')rKL-I)i:-VILLE. 



LA VILLE 

THEODORE DE BANFILLE 

WHEN, having become a figure of bronze or 
marble for eternity, raised upon his pedestal 
in the centre of a public square, Balzac shall 
behold his Paris, which is our Paris, he will see it as he has 
evoked and glorified it, that is to say as it is. 

One of the greatest merits of the creator of La com'edie 
humaine consists in this, that he, better than any one in the 
world, has understood Paris's manner of being absolutely 
ideal and supernatural. In fact, this prodigious city is not 
in the least governed by the physical and material laws that 
rule other cities. Thus the inhabitants of Melun or Long- 
jumeau could no more form an exact idea of themselves 
than could the Esquimaux or the Kaffirs. 

The essential and permanent phenomenon of Paris is 
that ideas are drunk in with the air that is breathed. There, 
it is not only the great lords who know everything without 
having learned anything, it is the whole mass of human be- 
ings, and none of them are ignorant, not even those who 
have learned many things. Souls and minds mingle and 
penetrate each other, and everybody is acquainted with 
everything. If it pleases Joseph Bertrand or Renan to talk 
mathematics or exegesis with the passing Gavroche, they 
will find him perfectly well-informed. And supposing the 

219 



220 PARIS 

same young blackguard comes across some elegant lady be- 
ing tracked by a husband, or a jealous lover, or ignoble 
Tricoches, and driven to bay like a hind in the woods, she 
will only have to cast him a glance and Gavroche will very 
soon have found some ruse of an extraordinary Scapin or a 
superior Mascarille to save her and get her out of her em- 
barrassment. After which, without awaiting or desiring 
any thanks, without pride and without humility, he will 
depart to eat a sou's worth of fried potatoes, if he is in 
funds. 

What wealth, what pleasure, what ephemeral possession 
would be worth the immeasurable quantity of genius that is 
spent among us every moment ? Assuredly none. Thus 
the great Parisians do not possess anything, are not worth 
anything, and personally are as disinterested as monks in a 
monastery in Asia. What they desire and what they gain 
is the glory of constituting the city that serves as an ex- 
ample and as a light for the world. It is to be Paris, and 
that they are. De Marasy and Rastignac do not, and have 
not the time to, amuse themselves. They only care to 
carry along and dominate the intellect, Gobseck, Wer- 
brust, Palma and Gigonnet not only care nothing for what 
can be bought with gold, and each of them could live on 
thirteen sous a day and save money in addition, but they do 
not love gold itself and merely cherish the unlimited power 
it represents. What they all propose to themselves is, like 
Pistheterous at the end of the comedy of the Birds, to es- 
pouse the goddess So\ereignty. And in spite of the Naquet 



LA VILLE 221 

law, when once this great marriage is accomplished, there 
is no danger that they will get divorced. 

They are all quite willing to die and even to live for 
their country, to give it first and always their blood, and 
then their gold, their genius, their intellect, and their inex- 
haustible treasures of invention in addition; but, contrary 
to what is supposed by certain inhabitants of distant or 
even neighbouring countries, politics does not exist in Paris. 
Between two true Parisians not a single word dealing with 
politics is ever pronounced ; and whosoever should infringe 
this elementary rule, dictated by good education, would 
thereby be guilty of a great indecency. 

Who of us would have the extreme puerility to care 
whether the squirrel makes ten revolutions in his cage or 
only eight ? And what would political agitation serve in a 
country that has succeeded in conquering true Equality ? 
Yes, Paris possesses and enjoys this treasure superior to all 
others. 

In fact, without being deceived, without any hesitation 
and without any possible error, every one occupies the place 
that he really merits and that nothing can deprive him of. 
The distinctions, the honours, the mediocrity or splendour 
of life have nothing to do with it. This one is the great 
savant, or the great artist, or the great workman ; that one 
is the vulgar man. Everybody knows it, nobody has any 
doubt of it, and it is as evident as if they had been marked 
on the brow by an indelible sign. One individual's clothes 
are covered with embroidery, he is a member of every com- 



222 PARIS 

pany, twenty times a dignitary and horribly spattered with 
badges j another, garbed in an old great coat, without a noth- 
ing bleeding at the buttonhole, and crowned with his white 
hairs, dwells in a garret amid folios. Nevertheless, this 
one is surely the hero, the demagogue and the creator} and 
the other one deceives nobody, not even himself. Who 
has distributed the honour or the contempt to which each 
of these men is entitled ? It is that invisible and im- 
peccable justice which in Paris reigns over the souls of all 
men. 

And, especially, over the souls of all women. They 
know, and know profoundly, that with themselves the 
splendour of the countenance, the beautiful proportions of 
the form, the sincerity of the gaze, the rapidity of the 
thought, and the grace of the attitude mark those who in 
the true acceptation of the word are princesses of the blood, 
and that duchesses, worthy of that name, may be born on 
the Quai de la Rappe as well as in the old historic man- 
sions of the Rue de Lille. Aurelien SchoU has related that 
terrifying and poignant tragedy of a great lady, beautiful 
(because she wanted to be), elegant, courted, and surrounded 
with men, who, one fine day, wanted to know what she 
was really worth in the open market. To put this to the 
test, she went and took her seat among the girls in the low 
room of a Maison des Fleurs^ and this woman, who saw 
worlds, millions, vast regions, and the treasures of Bengal 
and Ophir at her feet, did not find a single man there who 
would offer a vile piece of gold to buy her. 



LA VILLE 223 

Oh, the women of Paris know this terrible tale; they 
have all read it. And those who have not read it have 
divined it. Therefore, each of them, intuitively and by a 
miracle of knowledge, knows exactly what she is worth, as 
well as what other women are worth. On that question 
there is no possible illusion or mistake, and the glitter of a 
robe by Worth, embellished with more gold, embroidery, 
furbelows, and gewgaws than the heaven has stars, does 
not suffice to induce the belief that there is a woman in it, 
if there is not. More than this, a future Princess de Cad- 
ignan may be combed with a nail, bundled up in rags, and 
shod with ignoble shoes, and yet all the women will see upon 
her back the triumphant robes to which she virtually has a 
right. 

For nothing can prevent a truly aristocratic woman from 
some day rising to her veritable rank, nor can anything 
force her to fall from it. In the air of Paris there is an 
ambrosia that restores the goddesses to their native 
splendour, even when travestied as sweepers, and mys- 
teriously cleanses them of all their stains. 

Fires were lighted along the Mountains of Ida, and the 
promontory of Hermes and Lemnos to Athos, to announce 
the fall of Troy. There were voices and signals on the 
sea. There were semaphores raised on the towers that 
desperately raised and lowered their great absurd arms, soon 
eaten and devoured by the fogs. There is now the electric 
wire under the sea that bears to New York for the morn- 
ing journals long notices of the piece performed the evening 



224 PARIS 

before. These gross and material engines are not needed 
for intercommunication among Parisians ; for, in their city, 
as I have said, thought transmits itself by its own force and 
without any intermediary. If an inhabitant of Montrouge 
murmurs a word in a low tone, two seconds afterward all 
the natives of Montmartre know it. Thus even if or par- 
ticularly when he has not been present, any Parisian has 
seen all the solemnities, all the battles, all the rejoicings, all 
the official balls, and all the comedies, so that there is no 
difference between those who were present and those who 
were absent unless it is that those who were absent were 
present rather more than the others. 

And one might cite a thousand examples to prove the ex- 
istence of this phenomenon. Ruined, exhausted and half- 
dead by excessive work, a very able writer, whom his 
friends familiarly called Edgar, had gone to make a long 
stay at the Bordighera, for the purpose of taking a great 
sunlight bath and recovering his health, if possible. This 
cure succeeded beyond his hopes. After a few months 
spent in the warmth and sunlight, he was almost well and 
had nothing more to do than to let himself live ; but sud- 
. denly he was seized, overcome and clutched at the heart by 
Parisian nostalgia. 

" It is stronger than I," he said to a friend of his youth 
whom he had met there. " I feel the need of acquiring 
new strength, of reviving my soul, of recovering myself and 
being healed in the divine tomb of Paris. I want to see all 
the fetes, the balls and the re-unions, of attending all the 



LA VILLE 225 

first performances, reading the new books before they have 
appeared, running over the newspapers while damp from 
the press, admiring the most recently invented women, 
queens and duchesses in their carriages, or on their fiery 
horses." 

Edgar departed as he had said, returned to the Faubourg 
Saint-Germain where his chambers looked upon the great 
gardens, found his beautiful silken cushions, his carpets, his 
books and all that pretty abode that he had lovingly 
created ; and with reason he found it so delightful that he 
did not go out. And yet, when he returned to the Bor- 
dighera and his friend asked him if he had seen all that he 
had wanted to see, he said, " Ah ! certainly ; " and with a 
convincing eloquence he told of the re-unions, the comedies, 
the beauty of the women, the transfiguration of the 
Parisian landscape with great exactness and without lying 
or making the mistake of a syllable, for, in fact, he had 
seen it all by the mere fact of being in Paris. And this 
magnetism of the atmosphere does not merely serve for see- 
ing and hearing everything without the aid of the material 
senses, it also gives to the Parisians, in an ideal and at the 
same time real manner, the things, the beings, the treasures, 
and all the enjoyments of possession. 



LES BOULEVARDS 

LOUIS ENAULT 

THE boulevards are like a little city in a great one, 
— a second Paris within itself, the capital of 
Paris, as Paris is the capital of the world, — or 
rather it is a little universe of a league and a half in length 
by a hundred metres in width. Five or six times, the 
Boulevard changes its name as it docs its character. There 
are various kingdoms separated by a brook that separates 
them as profoundly as an ocean divides two empires. 
From one side to the other, mariners and population, habits 
and inhabitants, everything differs. The Boulevard has ex- 
isted scarcely sixty years. 

Sixty years ago (in 1800) it started from a prison and came 
out in a desert. To-day, on the ruins of the prison the Genius 
of Liberty spreads its wings of gold, and the desert is an 
elegant quarter. It traced a line across an uninhabited re- 
gion, full of sloughs and puddles, covered with boards, 
dotted with wooden shanties and ambushed by footpads 
who infested the lonely district. To-day it is a macadam 
road — macadam is the last word of civilization for artificial 
mud ! — given up to horsemen and carriages; a fine row of 
trees, that are cut down at every revolution and replanted 
on the morrow ; a wide bitumen path for pedestrians, and 
two long avenues of monumental houses, Parisian life has 

226 



LES BOULEVARDS 227 

been transferred more and more from the Seine to the 
Boulevard in proportion as money has dominated the no- 
bility, and the Chaussee-d'Antin has conquered the aristo- 
cratic faubourg. 

When the Boulevard had inherited the Palais Royal, the 
police closing its games and driving away the women, 
its fortune thenceforth was assured ; it became the rallying 
point of the globe, the forum where, under the grey skies, 
all tongues, known and unknown, are spoken ; the bazaar 
of free flesh, where all the races of the world come to be 
judged on sample ; the kingdom of saunterers, the centre 
of business, the rendezvous of pleasure, the hearth of inac- 
tivity, the paradise of loitering, and everybody's highway. 
It is there that in troublous times the muttering riot and the 
successful revolution take place ; when better days return it 
is also the Capitoline Way along which serene Peace con- 
ducts the triumph of emperors and kings. Stay for an hour 
on the path in front of the Maison d'Or, or on Tortoni's 
steps, and you will hear the names of all the illustrious men 
in literature, art, politics and society. This ever new parade, 
this endless defiling past, this kaleidoscope of inexhaustible 
fancies, this spectacle of a thousand representations, this 
perpetual going and coming, this mixture of everything, this 
undulating and varied thing of insatiable curiosity, ever 
satisfied and ever recurring, — when once we have seen it, 
we shall never resign ourselves to see it no more. 

It is on Sunday under the first April suns that the Boule- 
vard should be seen. On that day it does not belong to 



228 PARIS 

the foreigner: the Parisians have reconquered it from the 
winter and they enjoy it with the avidity of new possess- 
ors. The sunlight plays among the black branches, the 
wind-swayed shadows of which streak the asphalt. At the 
tips of the branches through the opening red buds the ten- 
der leaves unfold their little favours, green as the livery of 
spring. The fatigue of the ball still pales the women's 
cheeks which are already showing fresh life under the pur- 
ple of new blood. How the throng flows in from every 
street and spreads its living waves over the bitumen of the 
paths ! Spring toilettes are not yet attempted, but the 
velvet mantle is open and the hand half protudes from the 
sleeve ; the violet (price one sou) flourishes in the button- 
hole ; people go, come, look at each other, see and are 
seen: for many of them this is the half of life. The man 
of leisure whose every day is a Sunday elbows the man of 
toil who is snatching a few hours from his close task. The 
woman of fashion passes beside those who would like to be 
one : Aspasia crosses Rigolette, each forgetting to hate the 
other in the joy of a warm breath of air, a little gleam of 
blue and a ray of gay sunlight. 

We will take the glorious Pont d'Austerlitz as our depart- 
ing-point. Without dwelling upon it, let us indicate the 
splendid panorama spread out around us. On our left we 
have the railway terminus, the Boulevard de I'Hopital, the 
Jardin des Plantes with its great cedar rising in a pyramid 
beside its belvidere ; the dome of the Pantheon, supported 
by a circle of elegant columns, crowning the mount of Saint- 



LES BOULEVARDS 229 

Genevieve ; and that heavier cupola in the distant horizon is 
Val-de-Grace. To our right is the He de Louviers, then 
the He Saint-Louis, and then the Cite with its noble 
cathedral surrounded by its counter-forts and dominated by 
its pinnacles and small spires as by a forest of stone. The 
Colonne de Juillet shows us by what road to reach the 
Place de la Bastille. A bold bridge thrown across the 
Saint-Martin canal brings us to the foot of the column that 
occupies the centre of the square : the Place de la Bastille 
is the beginning of the Boulevard. 

Upon the Place de la Bastille no trace is to be found of 
the celebrated fortress that gave it its name. 

We know that the Bastille was constructed under 
Charles V., by the provost of Paris, Hugues Aubriot ; he 
was one of the first to be shut up in it, just as Guillotin 
tried the machine invented by himself. It was then called 
the Bastille-Saint-Antoine ; later it was called the Bastille, 
meaning the prison par excellence. From Louis XL, the 
king-jailer, it received the embellishments that were to make 
it a model prison. Experts on this sad question cite with 
admiration the wooden cages studded with iron, widened 
above and contracted below, in which one could not stand 
up, nor sit down, nor lie down. The Bastille was a heavy 
building which smelt of the prison a league away : an enor- 
mous quadrilateral of thick masonry and great cut stones ; 
five big towers, half sunk in the walls that connected them, 
defending the fortress. In its circuit the wall contained 
sombre yards, damp courts into which the sun never pene- 



230 PARIS 

trated, and a beautiful garden reserved for the governor to 
walk about in. The walls of the Bastille were too discreet 
for the Bastille to have a history. Of this poem of grief 
and suffering we know only a few rapid and lamentable 
episodes : heroes, martyrs, scoundrels, great ladies, female 
poisoners, stage girls, illuminated prophetesses; all names 
meet and throng upon the too well-filled pages of the jail 
register. Sometimes the entire drama of royal justice was 
accomplished within its walls, from the preliminary ques- 
tion to the capital punishment, — without any other wit- 
nesses than the judge and the executioner. It was in the 
Bastille that Marshal Biron was decapitated ; it was there 
that the Chevalier de Rohan and the Marquise de Villars 
had their heads cut off. Its low door saw sovereign heads 
bend like that of Saint-Pol, illustrious heads like that of 
Voltaire ; we have no time to mention even princes of the 
royal blood. Of all the prisoners of the Bastille, the one 
that for the longest time has attracted attention, piqued 
curiosity, and excited sympathy is that Iron Mask, who 
was served at the table with plate marked with the lilies of 
France, to whom the governor removed his hat when ad- 
dressing, — but whom the sun never saw. Even to-day the 
identity of this mysterious personage remains one of the 
most unsolvable problems of history. 

The Bastille was destroyed on July 14, 1789 j it is from 
this day that the new era of personal liberty dates for 
France. When the populace penetrated into those cells, 
it only found three prisoners there. Louis XVI. had made 



LES BOULEVARDS 231 

silent reparation for the wrongs of the monarchy, before 
expiating them as an innocent victim in the sight of the 
world. When the prison was overthrown, a patriotic 
architect carved miniature Bastilles out of the ruins of the 
monument which were sent to the Departments. The re- 
mainder of the materials was employed in the construction 
of the Pont de la Concorde and Pont de Sainte-Pelagie. 

Two months before the violent destruction of the Bas- 
tille, the tiers-etat of Paris had asked that on the site of 
this destroyed and razed prison a vast square should be 
established, in the midst of which a column should be 
erected with this inscription : " To Louis XVL, the re- 
storer of public liberty." In '90, on the evening of the 
first fete of the federation, on their return from the Champ 
de Mars, the people organized a ball of patriots upon the 
levelled soil of the prison, and, on the door of this impro- 
vised ballroom, this inscription was placed : " Here people 
dance," on the very spot where for so many centuries 
might have been read : " Here people weep." 

The Place de la Bastille long remained void of durable 
monuments. Napoleon resolved to build a fountain of 
quite a new kind there : a colossal elephant laden with a 
castle in the antique manner was to discharge inexhaustible 
streams through its trunk. The castle was never seen ; 
the elephant remained in the model stage for forty years, — 
a plaster sketch demolished in detail by the rats. To-day 
upon the ruins of the Bastille, it is a bronze column that 
springs toward the sky ; it guards the ashes of those who 



232 PARIS 

gave their lives for an idea in the two revolutions of 1830 
and 1848. The Colonne de Juillet, as it is called, is not 
supported within by stone filling; it is composed simply of 
bronze, adjusted by cylindrical drums. A corkscrew stair- 
case leads to the top ; a circular pier of stone surrounded 
by a grille bears the columns, which rests upon a white 
marble pedestal, supported in turn by a square base, orna- 
mented by eighty-four bronze medallions. A lion passant 
defends the western face of the pedestal ; the arms of Paris 
are sculptured upon the opposite face; on the other two 
are engraved 1830 and the dates of the three days; at the 
four angles, the Gallic cock stands erect on his bronze 
claws. Cocks and lions are the work of Barye, whose 
hand can knead and animate rebellious matter. The 
column is surmounted by the Genius of Liberty with ex- 
tended arms, flaming brow, and half-spread golden wings. 
At the foot of the column the ashes of the victims are de- 
posited in cells. Every anniversary still brings its regrets 
and memories crowned with immortelles. 

The Port Saint-Antoine, formerly crenellated and forti- 
fied in the taste of the Middle Ages, has left no vestiges 
upon the earth, nor any trace in the memory of the people. 
Only the antiquary can say, " It was there ! " People do 
not listen, but pass on. 

To-day the Place de la Bastille, bordered by the Seine 
and traversed by the Saint-Martin canal, is the animated cen- 
tre of five or six great ways of communication radiating 
thence, by land or water, throughout Paris. 




COLONNE DE JUILLET (PLACE DE LA BASTILLE). 



LES BOULEVARDS 233 

The Boulevard Beaumarchais is the first we meet on 
leaving the Place de la Bastille. This boulevard was first 
called the Boulevard Saint-Antoine. It received the name 
of Beaumarchais in memory of the house whither the witty 
author of Figaro came to shelter the golden leisure of his 
happy old age. This house, a veritable temple erected to 
the Fine Arts, decorated with their most admirable produc- 
tions in pictures, statues and bas-reliefs, was demolished 
many years since : it gave annoyance to the Saint-Martin 
canal ! Its site was long pointed out. Campius ubi Troja 
fuit. Solitude succeeded its ruins ; now that solitude is 
built over and we have a new quarter and another boule- 
vard. Although still young, the Boulevard Beaumarchais 
has already received its baptism of fire. To-day its mis- 
fortunes are forgotten, the wounds of Paris soon cicatrize, 
the houses, quickly run up again, proudly display their vast 
terraces, their glittering windows, and their balconies like 
iron lace-work. The Boulevard Beaumarchais has a little 
theatre that bears its name. 

The Boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire may claim an il- 
lustrious origin. The Sixteenth Century planted those fine 
quincunxes, the majestic order of which was so dear to the 
well-regulated genius of our good ancestors. Louis XIV. 
planted, in rows like French guards, regiments of elms and 
plane-trees that still shaded and refreshed this quarter not 
many years ago ; the convent of the Filles-du-Calvaire, of 
the order of Saint Benoit, had for its godfather and founder 
that famous Capuchin, Joseph de Tremblais, whom Riche- 



234 PARIS 

lieu called his right eye and right arm, and whom the peo- 
ple called " the grey Eminence." The Revolution " put 
the beard on the Capuchin " and razed the chapel and 
cloisters of the Filles-du-Calvaire : the boulevard, noisy 
and turbulent, replaced the refuge of calm and peace. Be- 
tween the Filles-du-Calvaire and the passer-by of to-day, 
the boulevard has known an intermediate occupant ; for a 
long time the wandering tribe of Bohemians and mounte- 
banks came and camped in its beautiful shadow. 

Here is the Boulevard du Temple and we must alter our 
tone ! Siceltdes Alusa:^ paulo majora canomus ! 

The Porte Saint-Martin is the western frontier of the 
boulevard that bears its name. This gate, built at the city's 
expense in 1674, is of a somewhat heavy architecture: the 
string-course and the piers are in rustic vermicular bossages, 
with bas-reliefs in the spandrils. One of these bas-reliefs 
represents Louis XIV., under the traits of Hercules ; his 
sole vesture is the club, a singular costume for the berib- 
boned son of Anne of Austria! The invincible Louis, as 
Boileau would say, overthrows the Lernian hydra or the 
Numaean lion, representing Limbourg or Besan^on. The 
first of these bas-reliefs is by Dujardin and A4arty ; the 
second, by Lehongre and the elder Legros. The front 
bears the inscription " To Louis the Great, for having 
twice taken Besan^on, and Franche-Comte and crushed 
the German, Spanish and Dutch armies : the provost of 
the merchants and aldermen of Paris; 1674." 

The Porte Saint-Martin in one direction faces the Rue 



LES BOULEVARDS 235 

Saint-Martin as it goes to join the busy and populous quar- 
ters traversed by the Rue Rambuteau; in the other, the 
Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, extending toward La Vil- 
lette, — vast arteries, always full and distended, in which 
the sap of industry and labour circulates. 

The Boulevard Saint-Denis is not long, but it begins at 
the Porte Saint-Martin and ends at the Porte Saint-Denis. 
It could not begin nor end better. Situated between the 
faubourgs of the same names that are like the vast labora- 
tories of Paris, this boulevard sees the torrential flow of 
labour and industry. The great tall houses are inhabited 
by things and not by men. 

The Porte Saint-Denis is far superior to the Porte Saint- 
Martin : it is truly an artistic monument. The principal 
arch, which certainly lacks neither grandeur nor elevation, 
opens between two pyramids sunk in the thickness of the 
monument and abundantly ornamented with warlike tro- 
phies ; at the top they bear the symbolic globe of the world ; 
at their base and set upon the cornices of their pedestals 
are two colossal statues representing Holland and the 
Rhine. Holland is a female of opulent form seated upon 
the Netherland lion, no less cast down than herself: this 
poor lion holds under his large paw the seven arrows, em- 
blems of the seven United Provinces ; it is Holland dis- 
arming herself: it would be hard to put more grace into 
it. The Rhine rests one hand on a tiller and in the other 
holds a cornucopia that without doubt he is about to 
empty over France notwithstanding the words of the pa- 



236 PARIS 

triotic poet : " No, you shall not have the free German 
Rhine ! " 

Above the arcade, on the southern face, a large bas-relief 
represents the passage of the Rhine — not at the moment 
when he is crossing but when he is complaining of his 
greatness that keeps him on the bank. In the pedestal of 
each of the lateral pyramids a little door has been pierced : 
two Renowns are on the central spandrils, one with the 
trumpet to its lips, the other with a laurel crown in its 
hand. The plan and entire composition of this gate are 
due to Francois Blondel; under his orders were Girardon 
and Francois and Michel Auguiere. The execution is full 
of nerve and boldness. This triumphal arch was raised to 
Louis XIV., in 1672, by the provost of the merchants and 
aldermen of Paris, to commemorate his rapid conquests in 
Germany. There is no other inscription than these two 
words above the arch : 

*'Ludovico Magno." 

The boulevard makes an elbow to unite with the Rue 
Royale ; the disposition of the ground and architecture 
forms a long rectangle bordered with houses and the temple, 
seen obliquely, projects the angle of its portico into the 
street like a great head of masonry. 

This temple is the Madeleine. 

Above the pediment we read the following inscription : 

D O M sub invoc S. M. Magdalenae. 
Is it not a happy idea to have solemnly consecrated 



LES BOULEVARDS 237 

amidst the splendours of Paris the sweet memory of that 
beautiful Mary Magdalen, who poured the essence from her 
vase of alabaster over the feet of Christ, wiping them with 
her long hair, — a touching image of repentance that brings 
us to God ! 

We have only to judge this church from the outside for 
its picturesque aspect, and the scenic and decorative effect 
in its surroundings of the square and boulevard. 

Seen in profile and a little way off, the temple, dominat- 
ing all the surrounding buildings by its mass, presents a fine 
perspective when our glance penetrates and loses itself 
among the Corinthian columns that support the frieze. 
From the side of the Rue Royale, a broad and truly monu- 
mental flight of steps leads to the peristyle, where the colon- 
nade forms a double row and supports Lemaire's pediment. 
This pediment is twenty-eight metres long and seven high. 
Promenaders, returning from the Champs Elysees, can con- 
template the grandiose representation of the last judgment 
and Christ enthroned amid the resuscitated ; to his right, are 
the angel of salvation and the blessed ; to his left, the angel 
of justice and the condemned. Before him, at his feet, 
Magdalen on her knees invokes and supplicates in favour 
of the sinful city. All around the edifice is a long series of 
colossal eifigies of apostles, martyrs, and confessors. A 
more or less happy imitation of the Greek temples, the 
church of the Madeleine may offer to our minds a satisfying 
combination of lines and surfaces, but it generally leaves us 
cold, as do all imitations and all architecture that is not, if 



238 PARIS 

I dare say so, aboriginal, born of the soil, the civilization, 
the manners and the needs of a people. 

Nevertheless, sometimes the Madeleine presents itself in 
perspective with a great show^ of external magnificence ; it 
is then one of the most sublime scenes of the stage upon 
which the multiple drama of Parisian life is played. 

Toward evening or. a fine dav, when in the west half the 
heavens are on fire, the temple in vigorous relief detaches 
its sombre silhouette against the brilliant background. 
From afar its base seems to be already plunged into shadow ; 
in the meanwhile the slanting sun pours floods of ardent 
purple over the pediment and fills the vast portico with the 
golden dust of its rays. 

The Rue Royale leads us from the Madeleine to the 
Place de la Concorde. 



PkRE LACHAISE 

RICHARD WHITEING 

PERE LACHAISE, covering over one hundred acres, 
and the largest of the Paris cemeteries, is in the 
northeastern quarter. It is named after a cele- 
brated confessor of Louis XIV., w^ho had a country-house 
in the neighbourhood. It vi^as laid out as a cemetery in 
1804. It was the scene of desperate fighting during the 
Commune. It is open from sunrise to sunset — seven is 
the closing hour in summer. A bell rings at closing time. 
Many celebrated persons are buried here, and among the 
tombs or monuments of interest are those of Abelard and 
Heloise, Bellini, Gretry, Boieldieu, Thiers, Massena, Be- 
ranger, Lafontaine, Moliere (the last two transferred from 
their original place of burial), Daubigny the painter, Due 
de Morny, Michelet the historian (the sculpture by Mercie), 
Couture the painter (a bust and an allegorical figure in 
bronze by Barrias). Along with these are two monuments 
to soldiers and to National Guards killed in the war, the 
former erected by the government and adorned with im- 
posing statues in bronze. In some monuments the merit 
commemorated is of a peculiar kind. A large chapel, with 
a sarcophagus at the top, reminds us of the virtues of M. 
Ed. Blanc the founder of the gaming-tables at Monaco. 
The very highest, a pyramid shooting one hundred and five 

239 



240 PARIS 

feet into the air, was built for 100,000 francs to let posterity 
know that Consul Beaujour died in 1836. It is appro- 
priately called the Sugar-loaf. Dejazet, Balzac, Francois 
Arago, Casimir Delavigne, Racine, Alfred de Musset, 
Rachel, Mars, Talma, Rossini, Casimir Perier, may be 
added to the previous list of really distinguished names. 







V 






«f 













\ 



"o^t- 





LA PLACE ROYALE- {Place des Vosges) 

JULES CLARETIE 

'ITH its large houses of red stones and its vast 
roofs of slate, supported by elegant arcades, 
the Place Royale is of all Places in Paris the 
one whose general features are at once the most curious 
and charming. From a distance — from the Boulevard 
Beaumarchais — you perceive the house that stands at the 
corner of the Rue des Vosges ; you go a little farther, and 
while advancing you have suddenly stepped back two 
centuries. This is no longer the Paris of to-day, it is the 
Paris of Louis XIII. The hour of the raffin'es runs on, 
they say, to strike anew, and from these enclosed houses 
certainly there issues a procession of elegant lords and great 
ladies in trailing robes. 

In velvet pourpoints and silken skirts, in plumes and 
lace, with felt hats gallantly turned up, and swords proudly 
worn, M. d'Aumont and M. de Pisani, Madame de Mon- 
tansier and Mademoiselle de Polalion, Cinq-Mars leaning 
on the arm of Thou, Pere Joseph in a grey robe going to 
join his Red Eminence ; a whole century — and what a cen- 
tury ! It is there, still living ; or, rather, existing as a 
phantom, it comes to haunt these galleries where it loved, 
laughed, paraded, threatened, threw kisses in the air, and, 
at the same time, drew its sword. Extinguished passions, 

241 



242 PARIS 

defunct elegances ! Moss now greens the balconies where 
the lady leaned and to which the lover climbed ; at that 
window, now opening, it is not Marion who will appear, 
but a good bourgeois wrapped in flannel who, as he coughs, 
looks at the degree of temperature registered by his 
thermometer hanging there. It is no longer the Marechal de 
Biron, nor the Marechal de Roquelaure, nor the Marechal 
de la Force, nor M. de Bellegarde who talk of combats 
and adventures as they cross the Place ; it is the foot-soldier 
in large shoes, the groom going to curry his horse, the 
humble private strolling and hanging about the nursemaid in 
her white cap and apron. What would you say of it all, 
Ninon ? 

My handsome lovers, my soldiers in ruffles, all is over 
now. Your garden is a square. Where Desportes recited 
his poems, a little book-shop sells the popular songs. 
Malherbe reappears, with his mouth full of odes. Alas! 
under the arcades, a street Arab passes whistling the refrain 
now in fashion, and to the poet who cried : 

•• Elle itait de ce monde oit les plus belles choses 
Ont le pire destin " 

echo replies : 

" La belle Venus, 
La Venus aux carottes !" 

Your famous arcades — where Pierre Corneille, who had 
not yet written M'ed'ee^ placed the scene of one of his 
comedies (it also was called La Place Royale^ and roused a 
great outcry, particularly among the women, who found 



LA PLACE ROYALE 243 

themselves a little too severely railed at), where your 
luxury flowed, where your wit sparkled, where your anger 
growled, and where your loves were sung, — the fruit-sellers, 
stay-makers, tobacconists, cabinet-makers and dealers in old 
clothes have taken by assault. Here, upon these posts 
where Mademoiselle Marcelle perhaps wrote so that the 
ingrate, M. de Guise, could read her death-song as he 
passed — for in those days people died for love ; — they have 
painted in black letters, blue letters, and red letters, " So- 
and-so the watchmaker, so-and-so the glover, and so-and-so 
the tailor. Ah-! Monsieur d'Estrees, Monsieur de Turin, 
Monsieur de Joyeuse ! " Ah ! Monsieur de Luneterre, e 
finita la musica. The laurels have been cut and the happy 
days are extinguished ! Ah ! le hon billet qu'a la Chatre? 

On the side of the Rue Royale, however, the Place 
Royale seems to have resisted the invasion of the little 
shops. It is doleful there and sombre as a prison ; its 
windows are barred, its doors look lifeless and shut forever; 
its rare passengers seem to have been possessed of renuncia- 
tion or sacrifice. The stones are black, the arches are 
cracked, and rust and dust are everywhere. The Place 
seems here to protest against the present. It is here the 
same as ever ; its vast courts have not changed in the least. 
It looks sick and tired, but it will not give up. 

The military and the humble citizens, the nurses and the 
tenants have garden benches to sit upon and bask in the 
sun. Here, as in every other place where there is sky and 
grass, we find children and old men. Those who know 



244 PARIS 

nothing of life and those who know it too well are united 
here by the same sentiment — the love of flowers and of 
animals. But while the child lays them waste or beats 
them, the aged — who know the value of a caress or a 
perfume — replant the torn rose-tree or tend the beaten 
dog. 

In the centre of the garden, Louis XIII., in white 
marble, parades on horseback, a few steps from a fountain. 
The statue is by Dupaty and Cortot. It is an excellent 
example of the most deplorable statuary. The king, 
combed with the utmost precision, seems to have just left 
the hands of his hair-dresser, and his moustaches are geo- 
metrically curled on his upper lip. No expression ! Not 
the slightest character! The horse leans his belly upon 
the trunk of a tree. There is no inscription upon the 
pedestal. The uniformed frequenters of the Place Royale, 
forgetting the hours of the barracks, generally mistake this 
Louis XIII. for a Roman warrior or a marshal of France. 
The statue, moreover, is scarcely visible, surrounded and 
hidden by trees. The leaves, it would seem, are anxious 
to rob the public of Dupaty's work. These leaves have 
good taste. What a charming promenade is this Place, 
nevertheless, and how good it is to dream beneath its 
arcades ! You walk here weaving memories, just as if you 
were turning over the leaves of a book. Each step brings 
a chronicle, or a story, one of those beautiful stories of 
cloak and sword, which seem to us like legends. These 
red bricks, these scaling slates, these crumbling stones be- 



LA PLACE ROYALE 245 

come animated and speak. At twilight, in the uncertain 
shadows, you sometimes perceive, as if in the depths of a 
convent passage, vague silhouettes assuming form ; you 
hasten to approach them to ascertain if it is not the car- 
dinal's litter that you see in the shadow, or if these belated 
men are not coming, dirk in hand, to settle some affair of 
honour beneath the window of their lady. It would take 
an entire volume to relate the adventures and elegances of 
the Place Royale. 

There was formerly the Hotel of the king, the Hotel des 
Tournelles, that formidable and charming palace, menac- 
ing without, magnificent within. The chancellor, Pierre 
d'Orgemont, it is said, had it rebuilt expressly for his son, 
who was bishop of Paris, and sold it to the brother of 
King Charles V. The Tournelles was to become the resi- 
dence of the kings of France, but before that the duke 
of Bedford was destined to keep garrison there for the king 
of England. It was here that the tournament was held at 
which Henry II. was killed by the captain of the Scottish 
guard. Catherine de Medici blamed herself for the theatre 
of the murder, while waiting to revenge herself upon the 
murderer. The palace was abandoned and then demol- 
ished. The ground that it occupied became a horse- 
market, and the raffines d^honneur kept rendezvous there, 
dirk or sword in hand, to settle their terrible or trivial 
quarrels. They fought for a word, for a sign, for the hue 
of a pourpoint, for the knot of a ribbon, for nothing, — for 
pleasure. They killed themselves to kill time. It was also 



246 PARIS 

the date of savage hatreds. This terrible Sixteenth Cen- 
tury presents itself before history armed to the teeth. 

One morning in April, 1578, miguotis and guisards met 
at the Tournelles. There was a furious encounter with 
swords — Schomberg, Riberac and d'Entraigues against Liv- 
arot, Quelus and Maugiron. Quelus, the effeminate, re- 
ceived nineteen wounds but did not die until a month 
afterward. They carried away d'Entraigues and Livarot, 
who seem to have recovered by a miracle; Riberac had 
but twelve hours to live, but he saw Maugiron and Schom- 
berg die. 

Que Dieu rtfoive en son giron 
Quilus, Schomberg- et Maugiron ! 

The Place Royale should have begun as it ends, with 
the bourgeoisie. They were silk merchants who, during the 
reign of Henri IV. and on the site of this enclosed field, 
built a row of houses half brick and half stone for the ac- 
commodation of their shops. A truly marvellous effect 
was noticed. The king wished the isolated row to be- 
come a place and the Place Royale sprang from the ground. 
It was soon to become the heart of Paris, or, at least, its 
brain, the gathering place of tout Paris for all time, the 
vagabond centre of the city, which shifts according to 
the time, and was ascending at this moment toward the 
Champs Elvsees and toward Beaujon. Interrogate these 
galleries and these old houses ; their history was our his- 
tory. Ninon de Lenclos lives here, over there Marion 
Delorme. Madame de Sevigne was born here, Dangeau 



LA PLACE ROYALE 247 

wrote here. Chapelle and Bachaumont appointed meet- 
ings here. The Place witnessed one superb fete. It hap- 
pened in 16 1 2. Peace was to be signed with the king of 
Spain. Marie de Medeci wished to celebrate it worthily. 
A palace arose, the Palais de la Felicite^ and a procession 
was organized. Two thousand figurants^ and among them 
the most elegant men of the noblest titles, took part in the 
heroic masquerade. There were cavalcades and feats of 
arms. The challengers called themselves Lysandre, Alphee, 
Argant, Leontide, and Alcinor, and led men-at-arms. Upon 
the scaffoldings was seated the entire court in rich cos- 
tumes. And for two days, two entire days, the gallant 
mythology unfolded its pageantry, its gold, its plumes, and 
its silk sub sole crudo in the bright sunshine. 

But this comedy once played in Place Royale, tragedy 
resumes its rights. At twenty-seven years of age, Francois 
de Montmorency, Seigneur de Boutteville, was illustrious, 
and renowned for his bravery j he had been seen to fight 
nearly everywhere, in Languedoc, and in Saintonge at the 
taking of Saint-Jean-d'Angely. He was taken still breath- 
ing from a mine at the siege of Montauban. He loved 
danger for the sake of danger and when the battle was 
over he gave himself up to duelling for pastime. He 
fought despite arrests, despite the king, despite the cardinal, 
despite God, despite the devil. He was fighting on Easter 
Day, 1624; he came to kill the Comte de Thorigny in the 
close behind the Chartreux. La Frelle reproached him for 
not having chosen him for his seconds Necessarily he had 



248 PARIS 

to fight with La Frelle. They fought. La Frellc was 
wounded, Boutteville sought refuge in Brussels, and he was 
obstinately refused letters of indemnity for the past. 
" Very well," exclaimed Boutteville, " since the king re- 
fuses me everything, I will go to Paris and fight in the 
Place Royale ! " He did as he said, with Des Chapelles as 
his second, against the Marquis de Beuvron, a relative of 
Thorigny, and Bussy d'Amboise. Beuvron and Boutte- 
ville fought with their swords, but could not reach each 
other ; then they threw away these weapons, took their 
poniards, collared each other, and were about to cut each 
other's throats without further ceremony. " Bah ! I will 
give you your life ! " said Boutteville. " I will do as much 
for you ! " said Beuvron. At this moment des Chapelles 
returned to its scabbard the sword with which he was about 
to kill Bussy d'Amboise. As flight was imperative, they 
tried to gain Lorraine. The marshalsca (court of a mar- 
tial) arrested them. Death was certain. They submitted 
to it proudly. The Duchesse de Pompadour and the Prin- 
cesse de Conde entreated the king for them, weeping at his 
feet. Louis XIIL was content to reply : " I am as sen- 
sible to their loss as you ; but my conscience forbids me 
to pardon them." Behind the monarch's pale face there 
stood, rigid and severe, the figure of Richelieu, inflexible 
and calm as the law. 

The cardinal-minister, in irony perhaps, had in 1669, a 
statue of his sad master put up in the very centre of the 
Place Royale. The Place Royale became the Place Fe- 



LA PLACE ROYALE 249 

deres in '92 and the statue was overturned. It was des- 
tined to be remounted in a new form upon its pedestal in 
18 15. The year 1848 gave the Place Roy ale the name 
that it bore under the consulate and empire, — Place des 
Vosges. 

Of all these houses, one is particularly celebrated. This 
is No. 6, the Hotel Guemenee, where Victor Hugo lived 
for a long time. The Hotel Carnavalet, two steps away, 
saw the birth or re-birth of our French language with all 
its affectations and delicacy. 

No. 6 Place Royale helped toward the blossoming of 
modern poetry and the modern drama with all their au- 
dacity and grandeur. Those who were of that epoch have 
told us with what flutterings of heart they mounted the 
steps of that staircase and with what surprise they came 
out, bearing a counsel and an example. Ah ! what a happy 
time was that. 

It was also in the Place Royale one morning in 1858, 
that I saw the funeral procession of that woman who had 
succeeded in forcing Corneille and Racine upon our atten- 
tion, and resuscitating Melpomene as one might galvanize 
marble, Rachel lived at No. 9, Place Royale. On that 
day tragedy herself was buried. 



THE HOTEL DE SENS 

A. J. C. HARE 

IN the Rue de Figuier, behind the Hotel de Saint-Paul, 
will be found the remains of the Hotel de Sens, 
once enwovcn with the immense pile of buildings 
which formed the roval residence. Jean le Bon, returning 
from his captivity in London, was here for some time as the 
guest of the Archbishop of Sens. Charles V. bought the 
Hotel from Archbishop Guillaume de Melun, but upon the 
destruction of the rest of the palace, that part which had 
belonged to them was restored to the Archbishop of Sens. 
In the beginning of the Sixteenth Century the Hotel was 
rebuilt by Archbishop Tristan de Salazar. 

Under Henri IV. the palace was inhabited for a time by 
Marguerite de Valois (daughter of Henri II.), the licentious 
Reine Margot, when, after her divorce, she left Auvergne, 
and obtained the king's permission to establish herself in 
Paris. Here it is said she used to sleep habitually in a bed 
with black satin sheets, in order to give greater effect to 
the whiteness of her skin. She came to the hotel in Au- 
gust, 1605, and left it before a year was over, because, as 
she was returning from mass at the Celestins, her page and 
favourite, Julien, was shot dead at the portiere of her car- 
riage, in a fit of jealousy, by Vermond, one of her former 
lovers. The queen swore that she would neither eat nor 

250 




HOTEL DE SENS. 



■iJk 



THE HOTEL DE SENS 251 

drink till she was revenged on the assassin, and he was be- 
headed two days after, in her presence opposite the Hotel. 
That evening she left Paris, never to return, as the people 
were singing under her windows — 

" La Royne — Venus demi-mortt 
De voir mourir devant sa parte. 

Son Adonais, son cher Amour, 
Four vengeance a devant sa face 
Tait defaire en la mesme place 

L' assassin presque au mime jour. ^^ 

It was within the walls of the Hotel de Sens, additionally 
decorated by Cardinal Dupont, that Cardinal de Pellerve, 
archbishop of Sens, one of the principal chiefs of the 
Ligue, united the leaders of the Catholic party, and there 
he died, March 22, 1594, whilst a Te Deum was being 
chanted at Notre-Dame for the entry of the king into Paris. 

After the archbishops of Sens ceased to be metropolitans 
of Paris (which was raised from a bishopric to an archbish- 
opric in 1622), they deserted their Hotel, though they were 
only dispossessed as proprietors by the Revolution. In the 
last century the Hotel became a diligence office ; now a 
fahrique de confitures occupies the chamber of la galante 
reine^ but the building is still a beautiful and important 
specimen of the first years of the Sixteenth Century, and 
no one should fail to visit its gothic gateway defended by 
two encorbelled tourelles with high peaked roofs. A porch, 
with vaulting irregular in plan, but exquisite in execution; 
its brick chimneys, great halls, the square donjon tower at 



252 PARIS 

the back of the court, and the winding stair of the tourelle^ 
remain entire ; only the chapel has been destroyed. On 
the left of the entrance is an eight-pounder ball, which 
lodged in the wall, July 28, 1830, during the attack on the 
convent of Ave Maria. 




HOTEL DE VILLE 

PAUL STRAUSS 

N looking at this magestic Hotel de Ville, that is 
one of the jewels of artistic and architectural 
Paris and at the same time the fortress of munic- 
ipal liberties, the mind recalls the ancient Parloir aux bour- 
geois of the Place de Greve^ the Maison aux Piliers described 
by Sauval : " As for the building, it was a little affair of 
two gable ends connected with several ordinary houses. I 
will not amuse myself with a long account of all its apart- 
ments ; it is enough to know that it had two courts, a poul- 
try-house, high and low kitchens, great and small, stews 
or baths, a chamhre de parade^ another called le Plaidoyer^ a. 
wainscotted chapel, a hall covered with slates, five toises 
long and three broad, and various other conveniences. In 
1420, it still had a large granary for hostelry. Mahiel, or 
Mahieu Bethune painted the hall belonging to the office, 
and adorned it according to the taste of the day with flow- 
ers, lilies and roses, mingled and enriched with the Arms 
of France and of the city. The floor of the rooms was 
covered with a cloth in winter and strewn with green grass 
in summer. 

The municipal house was not worthy of Paris, and Fran- 
ass 



254 PARIS 

^ois I. enthusiastically welcomed the project of the *■'■ prevot 
des marchands" to rebuild the Hotel de Ville "which shall 
be sumptuous and one of the most beautiful known." 

An authoritative art critic, M. Marius Vachon, combats 
the legend that attributes to Dominique de Cortone, alias 
Boccador, the paternity of this celebrated monument of the 
Renaissance ; he refers the honour to Pierre Chambiges, a 
French architect, " master of the masonry works of the 
city of Paris." But, in spite of this learned dissertation, 
the principal facade of the Hotel de Ville will for a long 
time yet bear the Italian name of Boccador. 

On several occasions, during the second half of the 
Eighteenth Century, the Provost of the Merchants and the 
Echevins, studied plans for the removal of the Hotel de 
Ville, that were insufficient and too restricted; one of the 
most original propositions was that of Cosseron, an echeviriy 
who wanted to remove the Hotel de Ville to the open space 
formed by the prolongation of the Pont Neuf. 

During the reign of Louis-Philippe, the desire to isolate 
the Hotel de Ville and to facilitate its defence — following 
the outbreaks of 1832 and 1834 — was not foreign to the 
adoption of the plan of development and enlargement of the 
house of the commonalty, which was executed under the 
direction of the architect, Lesueur, in conjunction with M. 
Godde ; the work, begun in 1837, was completed in 1846. 
It cost more than twelve millions. The old belfry was re- 
stored in 1868; the reception-rooms were decorated by the 
most celebrated artists ; Ingres and Delacroix executed ad- 



HOTEL DE VILLE 2^^ 

mirable paintings there ; the ceiling of the Salon de la Paix 
was a genuine masterpiece. The work of Ingres was uni- 
versally admired. 

The new municipal palace, reconstructed by MM. 
Ballu and Deperthes, faithfully reproduced the plan and 
style of the old Hotel de Ville ; the original facade of 
Boccador, however, has been divided, the central portion 
enlarged, a gallery for circulation in front of the festival 
hall has been arranged on the Place Loban; and, finally, 
new arrangements have permited the establishment of a 
large windowed hall on the side of the Rue de Rivoli for 
the use of the Caisse Municipale. 

The new buildings occupy a total area of 14,476 metres, 
the surface that can be utilized only 11,876 metres, and 
one of the criticisms that the architect Due aimed against 
the old Hotel de Ville of Boccador and Lesueur would 
have the same force and the same truth to-day. 

It is at night, in full electric illumination, in evening 
toilette, that the city palace dazzles the eyes of its guests ; 
no description can give the effect produced by that har- 
monious and imposing whole, that luxurious setting, and 
that superb frame. The great staircases and the staircase 
of honour, the vestibules, the galleries, the brilliant salons 
and the marvellous festival hall defy all criticism and sur- 
pass all praise. This glorious edifice, the history of which 
is mingled with that of Paris, seems to be protected by 
the images of the ancestors and great men of the city. 
M. George Veyrat has piously taken the trouble to write the 



256 PARIS 

history of the statues of the Hotel de Ville and he has brought 
to life again the illustrious dead of this open air Pantheon. 
There is not an event, great or small, that has not had its 
origin or its reaction in the Hotel de Ville. Nothing more' 
attractive can be read than the origin and development of 
that association of water merchants that ended by holding 
in its hands all the administrative power, and with which 
even the kings of France had to count and to accommodate 
themselves. The Parlo'ir aux bourgeois had even judicial 
functions : it pronounced sentences ; the municipal magis- 
trates had a hand in the fortifications, the street paving, the 
maintenance of the highways, the quays, the bridges, the 
fountains and the distribution of water. 

Every year, the city bureau, in mantle and pleated band, in 
accordance with a constant ceremonial, in great pomp 
visited the bridges, the ramparts, the waters of Belleville, 
the Pre Saint-Gervais, Arcueil and Rungis, and the 
fountains. Their carriages were escorted by six city guards 
on horseback and two officers. 

The Hotel de Ville is the central hearth, the supreme 
motor of the communal life of the twenty-four quarters of 
Paris, but, by the force of circumstances, the niairte d'' 
arrondissement chances to be the civic house par excellence. 
That is the one that follows the citizen from his birth to 
his death, participating in the most important actions of his 
life, receiving him on his entrance into the world and 
accompanying him to his last abode. Between these ex- 
treme points of human existence, the mairie interposes at 



HOTEL DE VILLE 257 

the most decisive periods, — the civic and military majority, 
the nuptial fetes, and, from beginning to end, it is our 
social headquarters, the administrative domicile of all the 
inhabitants of the same district. 



HOTEL BARBETTE 

iDOUARD FOURNIER 

TURNING east from the Rue Veille du Temple, 
by the Rue des Franc-Bourgeois, we find at the 
angle a picturesque and beautiful old house, with 
an overhanging tonrdle^ ornamented by niches and pin- 
nacles. It takes its name of Hotel Barbette from Etienne 
Barbette, master of the Mint, and confidential friend of 
Philippe de Bel " directeur de la monnoie et de la voierie 
de Paris" who built a house here in 1298. At that time 
the house stood in large gardens which occupied the whole 
space between the Cultures Saint-Catherine du Temple, and 
Saint-Gervais and which had belonged to the canons of Saint- 
Opportune. Three more of these vast garden spaces, then 
called courtilles^ existed in this neighbourhood, those of the 
Temple, Saint-Martin, and Saint-Boucelais. It is recorded 
that when the king offended the people in 1306, by altering 
the value of the coinage, they avenged themselves by tearing 
up the trees in the Courtille Barbette, as well as by sacking 
the Hotel of the minister, for which twenty-eight men were 
hanged at the principal gates of Paris. Afterward the 
Hotel Barbette became the property of Jean de Montagu, 
then sovereign-master of France, and Vidame de Laonois j 

258 



HOTEL BARBETTE 259 

and, in 1403, it was bought by the wicked Queen Isabeau 
de Baviere, wife of Charles VI., and became her favourite 
residence, known as " le petit s'ejour de la reine" 

At the Hotel Barbette, Queen Isabeau was not only 
freed from the presence of her insane husband, who re- 
mained at the Hotel Saint-Paul under the care of a mistress, 
but could give herself up without restraint to her guilty 
passion for her brother-in-law, Louis Due d' Orleans, who 
in the words of Saint-Foix " tachoit de desennuyer cette 
princesse a l' hotel Barbette.^' Here, also, were decided all 
those affairs of state with which the queen and her lover 
played, as the poor king, at the Hotel Saint-Paul, with his 
cards, though, whatever his faults, the Due d' Orleans was 
at this time the only rampart of fallen monarchy, and the 
only protector of the future king against the rapacity of the 
duke of Burgundy. 

It was on Wednesday, November 23, 1407, that the 
queen had attired herself for the evening in her trailing 
robes and headdress " en comes merveillenses^ hantes et 
Ungues enchassees de pierreries" to receive the Due d' 
Orleans, whom Brantome describes as " ce grand des 
bancheur des dames de la cour et des plus grandes." Whilst 
they were supping magnificently, one of the royal valets 
named Schas de Courte Heuse entered, and announced 
that the king desired the duke of Orleans to come to him 
immediately, as he wanted to speak to him on matters of 
the utmost importance. A presentiment of evil possessed 
the queen j but the duke, " sans chaperon^ apres avoir mis 



26o PARIS 

sa houppelande de datnas noir fourr'ee" went out at once, 
playing with his glove as he went, and mounted his mule, 
accompanied only by two squires riding on the same horse, 
by a page called Jacob de Merre, and three running foot- 
men with torches. But Raoul d'Octouvillc, formerly head 
of the finances, who had been dismissed from his post by 
the duke, was waiting in the shade, accompanied by seven- 
teen armed men, and instantly rushed upon him with cries 
of "^1 mort ! a mort ! " By the first blow of his axe, 
Raoul cut off the hand with which the duke guided his 
mule, and by another blow cleft open his head. In vain 
the duke cried out: " Je suis le Due d^ Orleans ;" no one 
attempted to help him, and he soon tottered and fell. One 
of his servants flung himself upon his prostrate body to de- 
fend it, and was killed upon the spot. Then, as Raoul 
held over his victim a torch which he had snatched from 
one of the footmen, and exclaimed: '■'• 11 est bien mort ! " 
it is affirmed that a hooded figure emerged from the neigh- 
bouring Hotel Notre-Dame, and cried : " Extinguish the 
lights, then, and escape." On the following day the same 
figure was recognized at the funeral of the duke of Orleans 
in his own chapel at the Celestins ; it was his first cousin, 
the Duke of Burgundy. Only two years later Jean de 
Montagu, Prime Minister and Superintendent of Finances, 
the former owner of the H5tel Barbette, was beheaded 
at the Halles, and afterward hanged, on an accusation of 
peculation, but in truth for no other reason than because he 
was the enemy of the Duke of Burgundy. Queen Isabeau 



HOTEL BARBETTE 261 

left the Hotel Barbette after the murder of her lover, and 
shut herself up in Vincennes. 

In 1521 the Hotel Barbette was inhabited by the old 
Comte de Breze, described by Victor Hugo : 

" Affreux, mal bati, nial tournt. 
Marque d'' une verrue au beau niilien du ni, 
Borgne, disent les uns, velu, chetif et bltme ; " 

and it is said that his beautiful wife, Diane de Saint 
Vallier, was leaning against one of the windows of the 
hStel, when she attracted the attention of Francois I., 
riding through the street beneath, and first received from 
that king a passing adoration which laid the foundation of 
her fortunes, as queen of beauty, under his successor Henri 
n. After the death of Diane in 1566, her daughters, the 
Duchesses Aumale and Bourbon, sold the H5tel Barbette, 
which was pulled down except the fragment which we still 
see, and which was restored in 1886. 

In la rue Vieille-du-Temple, at the corner of the Rue 
Francs-Bourgeois, look at the elegant tourelk, whose corbel- 
ling rounds the angle so beautifully, and which mounts 
gracefully toward the base of the roof, unhappily un- 
covered, with its two stories of blossoming foliage. This 
is the riant debris of that gloomy Hotel Barbette, whence 
issued the Due d' Orleans, brother of Charles VI., when 
he was killed, at the very door, by the followers of Jean 
sans Peur. A lamp, which should burn forever, was placed 
there by one of the assassins, in expiation of the crime. 
Tradition says that La belle Feronniere dwelt near by and 



262 PARIS 

that it was by the light of the murderer's lamp, placed 
almost upon the tourelle^ that her husband saw Francois 1. 
escape one night from a visit to her. 

How much history dwells in this little corner ! The 
tourelle is no longer proud. After having been the orna- 
ment of a feudal hotel, transformed into the dwelling of a 
rich financier in the time of Louis XIV., what has it 
not become, without losing any of its exterior grace, not 
even the grating, so finely worked, of its little window ? 
It is the very humble dependency of the bedroom of the 
grocer, whose shop is found below. 



^ 



MUS^E CARNAVALET 

EDOUARD FOURNIER 

HE sculptures of the Hotel Carnavalet, where Ma- 
I dame de Sevigne lived, are authentic. They are 

"^ among the most remarkable productions of Jean 
Goujon. 

Jacques de Ligneris, Seigneur de Crosne, president of 
the parliament of Paris, for whom these works were made, 
was a very cultivated man in matters of art. He wished 
nothing mediocre for the Hotel, the site for which he pur- 
chased in 1544 in the ploughed lands of the Culture Sainte- 
Catherine. Pierre Lescot sketched the plan for him, to 
which Bullant gave the last touches ; Ponce made the orna- 
ments, such as the graceful stone balustrade which runs 
above the facade at the back ; the same Italian painters 
who created the marvels of Fontainebleau painted the 
rooms with some license, which was the fashion of the 
time, to the great indignation of the afFected Sauval ; and 
Jean Goujon was its sculptor. The Hotel was scarcely 
finished when M. de Ligneris died, leaving it to his son, 
who occupied it from 1556 to 1578, the year of his death. 
It was then acquired by the family that was its true god- 
mother. The widow of M. de Kernevenoy, whose Breton 
name was softened into that of Carnavalet, and who had 
been the worthy friend of Ronsard and Brantome, and 9 

263 



264 PARIS 

patron of the arts and letters, bought the Kotel for herself 
and her son. She was content to keep it in all its splen- 
dour without making many additions. 

The Hotel remained in this family for a long time. 
M. de Carnavalet, lieutenant of the guards, who played a 
certain role during the Fronde, but who no longer cut a 
fine figure upon the entrance of the new queen, Marie- 
Therese, on August 26, 1660, was the last representative 
of the name. Already in 1634 he had sold it to a magis- 
trate from Dauphine, M. d'Agaurri. Rarely residing there, 
the new master made too many alterations. 

In 1677 Madame de Lillebonne was the tenant. Her 
lease terminated on October ist, and competitors were not 
lacking to succeed her. Madame de Sevigne was at the 
head. She had tried all the streets of the Marais, and 
having visited it, she thought that this " Carnavalette " 
would suit her to perfection. She never left it : she was 
its soul and she remains its glory. Above all that hap- 
pened afterward, her name hovers with a brilliancy that 
prevents us from seeing anything else. " The grief of 
having her no longer is always fresh to me," wrote Ma- 
dame de Coulanges a year after her death; "too many 
things are wanting in the Hotel Carnavalet." Since then 
there has ever been a void no matter who came there. 
Brunet de Rancy, two years after Madame de Sevigne, 
brought only his importance as Farmer-General, with his 
ringing gold which resounded less than the vanished wit. 
Then later came the charlatans with their transfusion of 



MUSEE CARNAVELET 265 

blood, there chance placed later the treasure-room of the 
library where the Marquise had produced the most charm- 
ing of books while believing she was writing letters only. 
The school of Fonts et Chauss'ees was presently established 
there, as if to level all that really remained of wit. As 
good luck would have it, a clever scholar, M. de Prony, 
was director, and Madame de Sevigne's salon might imagine 
that there was no geometry in the house. The last tenants 
were a boarding-school keeper and his scholars, and I ad- 
mit, at least for the master, they respected the dignity of 
this dwelling bound by tradition. M. Verdot has written 
the history of the Hotel Carnavalet ; he has filled it with 
memories of Madame de Sevigne, and dedicated it to his 
scholars. I do not believe he could ever have made a 
better lesson. 



LA TOUR SAINT-JACQUES 

S. SOPHIA BE ALE 

THIS tower is all that remains of the church of 
Jacques de la Boucherie, which had to be de- 
molished to make way for the Rue de Rivoli. It 
was commenced in 1508, and finished in 1522. The figure 
of Saint James upon the little turret, and his friends the 
Evangelistic animals, by Rauch, were thrown down in 1793; 
but in 1836, when the municipality saved the tower by 
purchasing it, the statues were repaired and replaced. The 
church contained many tombs and slabs, some of which 
have found a home in the Hotel Cluny. One of the most 
famous persons buried at Saint-Jacques was Nicholas 
Flamel, a member of the University, and librarian, who 
died in 141 7, leaving large sums of money to the church. 
His effigy, and that of his wife, were to be seen kneeling 
at the Virgin's feet in the tympanum of the porch. He 
was venerated as their patron by the alchemists, for having, 
as was affirmed, discovered the philosopher's stone; and 
several times his house in the Rue des £crivains was rum- 
maged in order to find some indication of his secret. His 
funeral tablet has the following epitaph engraven upon it, 
and is numbered ninety-two in the collection of the Hotel 

Cluny : 

266 




^MliU... 



TOUR SAINT-JACQUES. 



LA TOUR SAINT-JACQUES 267 

Feu Nicolas Plameljadix escri 
Vain a laisse par son testament d 
Leusore de ceste eglise certaines 
Rentes et maisons qu' il avoit 
Acquestees et achetees d son vi — 
Vant pour faire certain service 
Divin et distribucions d'' argent 
Chascun au par auniosne tou — 
Chans les quinze vin : lost el di 
Eu et aultres eglises et hopitaux 
A Paris. — Soit prii pour les trtpasstes. 

The Tour Saint-Jacques is an excellent example of what 
may be done with the remaining portions of demolished 
buildings. As it stands, surrounded by gardens, it is a most 
beautiful object, an oasis in the desert of streets, and 
trams, and omnibuses, a quiet spot where children may 
skirmish, and mothers can sit in the open air and knit their 
stockings. Why cannot we do likewise in London ? If 
churches must be felled to the ground, why cannot we 
leave their towers as a centre to the burial-ground gardens, 
or remove and reerect them in our parks ? We might 
with advantage follow the example of Paris, both in the 
preservation of the old tower of Saint-Jacques, and in the 
arrangement of the garden of the Hotel Cluny, where, also, 
fragments of churches are set up as ornaments. 

It was from the top of the tower of Saint- Jacques that 
Pascal made certain experiments of the density of the air ; 
and in memory of this, his statue, in white marble, was 
placed under the porch. 



LA BOURSE 

GABRIEL MOURE r 

THE Bourse! The heart of modern Paris as the 
Halles are its stomach. 
The Bourse ! The cathedral of the new times, 
the temple of the sole religion that truly flourishes and is 
sincerely practiced. And what a religion ! As savage, as 
sanguinary and as mysterious as the most barbarous cults, 
with its strange rites, its special dialect, its sacrifices, its 
categories of the initiated and its colleges of priests. 

The stockbrokers are its supreme pontiffs. The 
prestige of withholding the privilege that constitutes their 
power clothes them with a dreadful splendour in the eyes of 
the masses. Everything gravitates into their light; every- 
thing bends before their majesty. They form an omnip- 
otent caste to whose hands the fate of public fortune is en- 
trusted. In the sanctuary where the divinity is enthroned, 
they are priests surrounded with glory, wealth and pride, 
and none dare attack their sacred sovereignty ; are they not 
the obligatory intermediaries between the power that is 
adored here and the multitude? Could their intercession 
be dispensed with ? 

Protected by strong barriers against which break the rage 
and concupiscence of the gold-maddened throng, they exer- 
cise the monopoly of their ministry. A greedy mob whirls 

268 



LA BOURSE 269 

around the sanctuary ; the fury of the assault surges, yells 
and seethes while the rough rite is being accomplished. 
A heated clamour mounts into the air that reeks of beasti- 
allty and blood and that is sometimes pierced by a cry as 
of a wounded animal. 

They themselves in the enclosure closed to the profane 
writhe in frantic gesticulations, and the echo that cease- 
lessly rebounds from the ceiling of the vast church resounds 
like a noise of the waves at the equinox and rolls and 
swells like the unchained fury of a revolt. 

It is one o'clock, the hour when Paris, tired after its 
morning's struggle, — for Paris rises earlier than other 
capitals — is reposing and stretching itself for a moment, 
that the worshippers of gold hold their assembly. 

A lull renders the streets almost deserted ; there is a 
pause in the feverish activity of the Great City ; efforts 
slacken ; fresh forces are being stored up for the remainder 
of the day. They come flocking ; they hasten with avidity 
from every direction ; in the streets disgorging into the 
square a swarm of human ants presses toward the prey. 
By hundreds the great houses in the whole neighbouring 
quarter disgorge them, business people seeking a precise 
goal at the precise hour. 

The neighbouring restaurants fill up. Appointments are 
made there, consultations are held there in freedom, and 
there preparations are made for the impending battle. It 
has already commenced : orders are transmitted, tubes are 
dispensed with, men examine one another face to face, the 



270 PARIS 

force of resistance of each is estimated, plans are unmasked 
and manoeuvres brought into light. Solitary lunchers, 
stranded in melancholy before cleared tables, fret in vain 
waiting for some one who should come, and ceaselessly 
glance with agony from the door to the clock. Important 
personages have a group around them of a constantly re- 
newed court of anxious curiosity. Farther on, two partners 
exchange confidences in low tones. Feverish fingers tear 
open telegrams ; from one table to another, hastily-scribbled 
sheets of paper are exchanged. 

The hour is about to strike ; three minutes more, time 
to cross the street. The restaurants are empty ; late-comers 
climb the steps four at a time, are engulfed beneath the 
colonnade, and vanish in the dark holes of the doors. 

The hour strikes ! Cries break forth up there, there is 
a sudden roar like a piece of artillery which makes a noise 
which will last for three hours without a moment's pause. 

The battle has begun. 

Before entering the melee let us cast a glance at the 
monument which shelters it. 

Nothing can be more commonplace or ugly. It par- 
takes at the same time of the nature of a desecrated church, 
a railway station, and an old model market. It might also 
be a theatre : so many dramas have their prologue and their 
denouement there. Why not a hall of justice ? It pos- 
sesses the austerity and glacial Puritanism of one. On its 
ground-plan what jails might be established ! 

Lugubrious monument ! Without the distinction of a 



LA BOURSE 271 

dome, a belfry, or a tower, it is squat and stupidly mass- 
ive ; it crouches heavily and cunningly ; there is some- 
thing dubious about it. A true temple of gold should be 
something else ! Sumptuous and excessive, it should fete 
the glory of the cult that is celebrated in it by a dazzling 
harmony of lines, and by fantastic audacity of decoration. 
Facades, glittering with enamels and mosaics, spires of 
precious stones, infinitely multiplying in their innumerable 
facets the solar rays, and mounting to the skies bearing the 
hymn of the men kneeling before the idol ! Like the 
Gothic cathedral in which the ardent soul of the Middle 
Ages is expressed in all its intensity, it should symbolize, 
glittering and exaggerated, the aspirations of its time, its 
disquietudes, its desires, its faith, and that riot of pleasure 
that holds possession of all. 

Alas ! I dream ! Such as it is the Bourse will remain 
austere, sad, and lacking in gaiety, like a protest amid the 
elegancies of contemporary Paris, that Paris which will end 
by being regarded by the foreigner as the public house of 
the universe. For, of the numerous cities contained in Paris 
the only one known is the city of pleasures and vice, the 
great hoaxer and the great skeptic whither come the provin- 
cials to recuperate, as they say, and the rastaquoeres of the 
two worlds to amuse themselves. But the others, the 
Paris of work and economy, the Paris of charity and science, 
the city of humble, proud, and wholesome existences, the 
city of sincere solidarity and devotion, who explores and 
who knows these ? 



272 PARIS 

The peristyle, notwithstanding the exclusion of the 
coulisse — the bete noire of the stockbrokers ! — has lost 
nothing of its animation. Before the putting in force of 
the new law, June 30th, 1898, a sensational date in the 
history of the Bourse, there were about eighty coulis- 
siers ; it is said that half of them went into exile in the 
land of Manneaeneis and Leopold II. One would not 
think so ; the same vociferations that formerly resounded 
beneath the sad colonnade still fill the square with their 
noise. The gold-mine market suffices for that, and the 
external aspect of the temple of stock-jobbing has remained 
the same. They struggle under the clock with the same 
ardour as formerly : the ' wet-feet ' have a hard life. Exposed 
to the inclemency of the weather, braving the heavy sum- 
mer sunshine that heats the immense asphalt carpet of the 
square like the tile in a furnace, and despising the gusts of 
wind and rain, they continue their battle as roughly as 
ever. Mounted on chairs, and perched upon the bases of 
the columns, viewed from the street they form a swarm 
which is not lacking in picturesqueness. If they are mal- 
treated by bad weather, at least in the moments of pause 
they can enjoy the clearness and open air ; under the up- 
right columns there are calm spots where it is pleasant to 
sit amid the fresh greenness of the trees in summer. Ha- 
bitues come there, men who are disillusioned with specula- 
tion, men who have failed, and men who are resigned to the 
life the atmosphere of which is indispensable to them as 
is the odour of the wings to old strolling-players. They 



LA BOURSE 273 

again find themselves in a familiar country, they follow the 
proceedings with interest and sometimes risk a stroke pru- 
dently and with the emotion of a beginner. Their eyes 
flame with passions that have been long asleep and sud- 
denly awake, and their torpor suddenly vanishes. 

The strange beings ! Small annuitants who come every 
day from the depths of their faubourg to tempt the fortune of 
speculation, timidly slip their orders and then wait, with that 
kind of pallor on the face that we see on the countenances 
of the players while the roulette is turning, for the close of 
the Bourse ; then, joyous or sad, according as chance has 
served or failed them, they return to their peaceful apartment 
in the confines of Batignolles or Belleville. Many on the 
retired list whose pension is not sufficient for them to maintain 
the rank worthy of their past also come there. They play 
prudently and are happy if at the end of the day they have 
succeeded in gaining the half-louis that will permit them to 
cut a good figure at the interminable cards in the evening. 

And the margoulin ! The speculator in small values for 
whom the least return suffices, perhaps only an occasional 
ten or twelve sous ; but what matters, to-day he is operating 
here ; to-morrow at some sale by a big house he will buy 
fifty umbrellas at five fr. 95 which two days afterward he 
is sure to sell at six fr. 50. Will he have lost his labour ? 
And what risks will he have run ? Is it not in tempting 
fortune as often as possible that one gets the greatest chance 
of finally beguiling it once for all ? And the ordinary life 
of these men is supported by this hope. 



274 PARIS 

The doors keep swinging ; an incessant going and com- 
ing from the peristyle to the interior obstructs the entries; 
we must insinuate ourselves, brave audacious elbows and 
submit to impatient pushing in order to get into the great 
hall. The first impression is that of feeling ourselves 
caught in the middle of a crowd after a catastrophe. The 
people have an air of seeking help ; they run about in all 
directions with nervous gestures, anxious starts, and with 
lips contracted with agony ; it seems as if misfortune is 
about them. A sinister atmosphere hovers about and I 
seem to feel a difficulty in breathing it without ill effects. 
It is heavy, charged with animality in action, brutal, and 
dry ; it is strong to excess. A special education of the 
nerves is needed to endure it : from this agglomeration of 
men, so powerful an electricity of instinct emanates that it 
gives one a kind of vertigo. And these shouts, these 
shouts of savages around their booty, these exasperated 
vociferations, this tempest of incoherent clamour! For a 
moment it is a series of barkings supported by long sub- 
dued roars ; there are voices that bleat and others that bray ; 
this one is croaking, that one is yelling ; another hisses, a 
thousand others roar, yelpings spread around, with grunt- 
ings and bellowings. Sometimes the sharp cry of a 
wounded animal rises above the deafening noise singly or 
in unison : one would say that there was a burst of cheers or 
that somebody was suddenly being hooted. Duets are 
formed ; the falsetto of a castrato struggles desperately 
against the deep notes of a bass ; a tenor tires his lungs ; a 



LA BOURSE 275 

baritone shouts himself hoarse : some of them utter their 
note of attack with triumphal assurance ; we are amazed to 
hear frail beings with narrow chests and curved backs pro- 
ducing sounds like a tramway-gong. Ah ! the dreadful 
flock of demoniacs ! They are possessed with the in- 
toxication of convulsionaries, the delirium of aissaouas, a 
sacred frenzy. Thus they celebrate the worship of Mam- 
mon. 

Look at this crowd, its gesticulations and its eddies ; the 
beauty presented by masses of humanity is absent from it ; 
it lacks unity, it is made up only of individual interests and 
hostile egotisms. However brutal they may be, by what- 
soever excesses they allow themselves to be carried away, 
whether true or false be the ideal for the defence or triumph 
of which they are marching, popular throngs have a differ- 
ent aspect ; there is a sincerity in their enthusiasm which 
is irresistible ; but as for this ! 

Study those countenances : they are all deformed by a 
grimace, that is a return to the primitive animality. The 
masks are depressed, and the brows are crushed down ; 
the noses lengthen into trunks, hook into sharp beaks and 
swell in sniffs of sensuality at the odour of the prey they 
scent. The eyes flame with concupiscence ; the lips 
writhe spasmodically. All these faces resemble one an- 
other, alas ! The crude light that falls from the glass ceil- 
ing gives them a uniformly wan tint scarred with hard 
shadows. 

The Semetic type predominates : the fine flower of the 



276 PARIS 

Ghettos peoples the Bourse. They bring hither their 
hereditary genius for traffic and their craft as experienced 
dealers in second-hand goods; here they are quite in their 
element, bold and reflective, tenacious and rapacious. Why 
should we be surprised at it ? During the epochs of male- 
diction through which they passed, the love of gold was 
their sole passion, a passion of redemption without which 
they would still be the unclean dogs of old. 

Ah ! What a sad spectacle is before us, these human 
crowds who, every day, in all the capitals of the universe 
and every important centre of the globe, gather together to 
celebrate the sanguinary office of Mammon. Martyrs have 
given their lives, philosophers have suffered insult and 
spitting, spirits of genius devoted to justice and liberty have 
vowed themselves to death, men have struggled their whole 
life long to ameliorate the condition of mankind and to 
snatch the world from barbarity, artists and poets have peo- 
pled the churches, the museums and the libraries with all 
their dreams in order to give to the nations the taste for 
Beauty, and all that leads up to this, to this battle of sav- 
ages around a pile of gold, around spoil torn from the 
labour of others. The ugliness and shame of it is too 
much ! 

In the centre of the Bourse, connected with the office of 
the brokers, which leads into the Rue Notre-Dame des Vic- 
toires by a passage guarded by barriers and flanked as if by four 
turrets by the groups the Comptant, the Rente, the Exter- 
ieure and the Valeurs a Turban, that is to say the Ottoman 



LA BOURSE 277 

stocks, the Corbeille is enthroned. It is the holy of holies ; 
it is a luminous hearth around which the crowd of brokers 
whirls incessantly. Without the iron bars that protect it, 
the pontiffs' very lives would often be endangered, and it is 
not one of the least of their privileges to be sheltered from 
the contact and fury that sometimes reigns in the heat of 
assault. The couUssiers^ remisiers^ commis d' agents and 
bankers themselves are not angels, and the heat of the 
battle sometimes so intoxicates them that with the senti- 
ment of distances they sometimes lose that of their own 
dignity. The temple of Mammon on several occasions has 
witnessed scenes of pugilism that would have made the least 
respectable taverns of La Villette or Montrouge envious. 
And what is there astonishing in that ? These people are 
struggling here for their skins and it is a matter of life and 
death between them ; between raisers and depressers it is war 
to the knife and one or other of them must be left on the 
floor. Whether they are bulls or bears the victory of one 
must entail the defeat of the other. The bulls have sharp 
horns ; the bears have claws and teeth. Antiquity had its 
gladiators ; the combats of the Bourse are neither less ex- 
citing nor less cruel : they always end in the triumph of 
Force. 

It is about the group of the Comptant that the agitation 
is most intense. A stranger who penetrates into it is im- 
mediately caught in the contrary currents, taken up, carried 
away and torn to pieces ; at the end of a few moments 
nothing remains of him but a mannikin with torn clothes, 



278 PARIS 

a poor tatter, game for the hospital or the morgue. How- 
ever, relative calm reigns between the columns and walls. 
There is a discrete twilight there, one may move about 
there, not without trouble certainly, but without running 
the risk of having one's sides driven in by two insistent 
elbows. Around the seats groups form ; this has a some- 
what familiar feeling or at least normal in contrast to the 
frenzy of the centre which, the more one watches it, be- 
wilders the eyes and dizzies the mind. One is affected 
gradually by the whirl, vertigo attacks one, and one remains 
there leaning against the balustrade in that state of semi- 
consciousness into which one is plunged by looking per- 
pendicularly down at the sea from the top of a cliff. 

At the end of the great hall is visible through the win- 
dows that separate it from the hall itself the Cabinet des 
Agents ! Sometimes, through the open door defended by 
barriers and keepers and through which one gains access to 
the Corbeille by the central alley, one gets a glimpse of in- 
dividuals sunk in deep armchairs, or leaning their elbows 
on immense tables draped like catafalques. One thinks of 
the sacristy of a strange church, the aisles of a mysterious 
worship. It is never bright ; thick curtains of a vague tint 
half veil the windows. 

It also recalls the office for marriages of the suburban 
mayors with its ridiculous and superannuated solemnity. 
Like all the rest of the building, it smells of the ancient, 
the out of fashion, the rococo j there is a feeling of an- 
achronism about it. 



LA BOURSE 279 

Along the alley leading to the Corbeille, the seven offi- 
cial Coteurs, employes appointed by the syndic chamber, are 
installed one behind another at little desks. They record 
the incessant fluctuations of the stocks. One asks how they 
manage to do it in the midst of these vociferations and sur- 
rounded by this group of the Comptant where the most 
energetic agitation of the market is concentrated. 

Around the hall, against the walls, in the sort of passage 
formed by the interior colonnade, elevated desks stand. In 
them are installed the titulaires noting the orders ; they are 
like a series of little offices, or minute agencies where the 
habitues gather. 

The place for bankers is in the kind of large entrance 
vestibule lighted from the front and gained through the 
constantly revolving doors. Here circulation is almost 
easy ; it is also light, and through the windows one can see 
the gesticulations of the Coulisse beneath the external 
colonnade, with a prospect of the square, the omnibus 
bureau, the normal life of Paris and the animation which 
about three o'clock is caused by the appearance of the first 
evening papers. 

High finance and coulissiers^ stockbrokers and rem- 
isiersj all who live well or live by the Bourse, in the eyes 
of the public appear to practice an exceptional profession 
to exercise an enviable and mysterious rite. The jargon 
that they talk gives them a kind of brilliant superiority in 
the eyes of little people and of the poor devils who wander 
around the grilles that enclose the temple in quest of the 



28o PARIS 

stump of a cigar fallen from the hand of a broker. Around 
a member of the Bourse shines a little of that radiance that 
forms the aureole that encircles the brow of the physician. 

Hence arises the extreme docility of the ignorant public 
seduced by the mirage of speculation. He places his gold 
in the hands of the intermediary as one of the faithful 
places his soul in the hands of the priest. 

People have searched for a name that will characterize 
this agonized century. There is only one that would de- 
fine it in its inmost soul and would sum up its tendencies, 
its preoccupations, its efforts and its manners ; it is the 
Century of Money. 

Amid the disorder of ideas, the anarchy of parties and the 
tumult of modern life in its innumerable currents, there is 
only one rallying cry. Money ; and the masses of humanity 
enthusiastically fraternize in the presence of the god of 
modern civilizations. The Bourse of Paris is one of the 
most incontestable and formidable of our forces. How sad 
is the lot to have nothing left in the world but the force of 
Money for extending and conquering. 



SAINT-GERMAIN UAUXERROIS 

S. SOPHIA BE ALE 

^ W ^HAT Saint-Germanus was a remarkable man there 
i is no doubt ; as we owe the discovery of Saint- 

-^ Genevieve to his foresight ; for, when he saw her 
at Nanterre, on his way to Britain, he was so impressed by 
her piety that he consecrated her to the service of God. 
The church in Paris was probably founded in commemo- 
ration of some miracle performed by the bishop during his 
sojourn in that city, perhaps by his namesake Saint-Ger- 
main of Paris, who held the memory of his brother of 
Auxerre in great esteem and veneration. That its origin 
was very ancient is shown by the record of certain gifts 
from King Childebert and Queen Ultrogothe. It was 
probably a round church in its early days, as in 866, when 
it was pillaged and destroyed by the Normans, it was called 
Saint-Germain-le-Rond, and it must have been in that edi- 
fice that Saint Landry, bishop of Paris, was buried. For- 
merly a chapter composed of a dean, a precentor, thirteen 
canons, and eleven chaplains, served the church, and it 
ranked immediately after the Cathedral; but in 1744, its 
chapter was merged into that of Notre-Dame, and it be- 
came a simple parish church. 

Saint-Germain was rebuilt by King Robert, and again in 
the Twelfth Century, to which period the tower belongs. 

281 



282 PARIS 

The principal door, the choir, and the apse are of the 
Thirteenth Century ; the porch, the greater part of the 
fa^ade^ the nave and aisles, and the chapels of the chevet^ 
are of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. The cloister 
which surrounded the church has disappeared, as also the 
dean's house which stood in the space between the church 
and the Louvre. It was in traversing the cloisters of Saint- 
Germain that Admiral Coligny was shot, and it was the 
great bell of this church which gave the signal for the 
massacre of Saint-Bartholomew. Saint-Germain was the 
parish church of the Louvre and the Tuileries, and some 
of the royal children are baptized there -, and many a time 
the kings went there in great state to perform their paschal 
duties. 

The portico projects in front of the three principal west 
doors, and is the work of Master Jean Gaussel. It was 
constructed in 1435, and is a mass of very beautiful carving. 
Some of the corbels are examples of the grotesque imagery 
of the period. The interior was decorated with fresco 
some years ago, but they are in a parlous, peeling con- 
dition. Two of the statues are old, Saint-Francis of 
Assissi, and Saint-Mary of Egypt holding the three little 
loaves which nourished her in the desert. The central 
doorway is of the Thirteenth Century, the two side ones 
are of the Fifteenth. The whole is decorated with statues 
of various Saints — amongst others, Saint-Germain, Saint- 
Vincent and Saint-Genevieve holding her candle, which a 
hideous little demon is trying to extinguish. Round the 



SAINT-GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS 283 

Tympanum, the subject of which is the Last Judgment, 
are the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Apostles and the 
Martyrs. The gargoyles are peculiarly grotesque : a 
grinning savage is being ejected from the jaws of a 
hippopotamus ; a man carries a hooded ape on his 
shoulders ; and a showman is making a monkey dance. A 
corbel shows us a quantity of rats persecuted by a cat — the 
rats being the wicked who encumber the earth ; the cat, the 
demon who awaits their souls. 

The plan of the church is cruciform ; the entire length 
is 240 feet, and the width at the transepts 120 feet. The 
interior is very plain, that is to say, what remains of the 
old church after the embellishments of the renovating 
architects of 1745. These gentlemen fluted the pillars of 
the choir, and converted the mouldings of the capitals into 
garlands and flowery festoons, giving the whole a grandly 
classic appearance. Happily they left the arches pointed, 
instead of filling them in with round-headed ones as at 
Saint-Severin ; and, likewise, we may be thankful that the 
nave was not " improved," and that the bosses and the 
ornament of the Lady Chapel were allowed to remain in 
their primitive beauty. 

In 1744 the choir was enclosed by a magnificent screen, 
the combined work of Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon ; but 
the cure and churchwardens, upon the suppression of the 
chapter, lost no time in destroying this work of art, in 
order to open up the east end of the church to the congre- 
gation — not the only case of its kind. 



284 PARIS 

Had the modern improvers of the church only pulled 
this down they might have been forgiven, but they did not 
rest until they had appointed an architect named Bacarit to 
"purify" the church of its ''^ barbarie Gothique." Un- 
fortunately for the reputation of the academicians of 1745, 
the project submitted to, and approved by them, appears to 
us, so far as it was carried out, to be a decided barbarie 
Classique ; and even in the beginning of this century, when 
the empire had introduced a sort of pseudo-Classic style, 
and made it fashionable, people of taste were no less severe 
upon the redressing of the old pillars and capitals in Greek 
garments." 

The chapels of the chevet have niches in the wall sur- 
mounted by round-headed arches, and containing statues. 
There are in all thirteen chapels, but four of them have 
been converted into a sacristy and the north door, the 
exterior of which is a good specimen of Renaissance 
work. 

The Abbe Lebeuf attributed some of the glass of the choir 
to the commencement of the Fourteenth Century, but not 
a vestige of this remains ; there is nothing earlier than the 
two following centuries. Here also the good gentlemen of 
the Eighteenth Century " improved " much ; the church 
was dark and gloomy, and so, forsooth, the stained glass of 
the nave was taken out, and the colour, and the golden 
fieurs-de-lis of the vaults and columns were scraped off or 
washed over. Thus was lost the history of Saint-Germain 
which formed the subject of the windows. But happily the 



SAINT-GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS 285 

rose-windows of the two transepts, four lights in the south 
aisle and two on the north aisle, still remain ; but these 
being only of the Sixteenth Century, are consequently not 
in the best taste. Some have Gothic and some Renaissance 
surroundings, but the colour is, if rather bright, clear and 
rich. Unfortunately, time has obliterated many of the 
heads and hands ; but enough remains to make out the sub- 
jects. In the north rose the Eternal Father, in Papal tiara, 
is surrounded by Angels, Cherubim, Martyrs, and Con- 
fessors ; amongst whom may be recognized Saints Cath- 
erine, Vincent, Margaret, Agnes, Martha, Germain, and 
King Louis. Above and below are the four Fathers of the 
Latin church. In the north transept the subjects are taken 
from the Passion, The Acts of our Lord, Scenes in the life 
of the Patriarch Abraham, a gentleman donor accompanied 
by his sons, and a lady followed by her daughters, a Saint- 
Peter, and Saint-Anne instructing her daughter, and patron- 
izing another donor. In the southern rose, the Holy Spirit 
descends from Heaven in the form of a dove 5 the Blessed 
Virgin and the Apostles receiving light from above, with 
enthusiastic expressions upon their visages. In the southern 
transept : The Incredulity of Saint Thomas ; The Ascen- 
sion ; The Death of the Virgin ; and The Assumption, 
Above, the Coronation of the Virgin and a well, recalling 
the attribute " Well of living water " given to her by the 
Fathers. There are a great many modern windows, but 
except those in imitation of the glass in the Saint-Chapelle, 
by MM. Lassus and Didron, they are of little artistic 



286 PARIS 

value. M. Lassus was the architect who superintended all 
the later restorations and decorations. 

The chapel of the Blessed Virgin is a little church in 
itself, with stalls, organ, pulpit, screen and altar, all richly 
decorated. The reredos is the tree of Jesse which sur- 
rounds the Virgin with its branches. This is in stone, of 
the Fourteenth Century, and comes from a church in 
Champagne. Some restorations in 1838 brought to light a 
curious Sixteenth Century wall painting, representing a 
cemetery with the graves giving up their dead to the sound 
of the angels' trumpets. Three statues were also found of 
the same date as the chapel, and serve as the retable of the 
altar : they represent the Blessed Virgin sitting, and Saint- 
Germain and Saint-Vincent (who are united in all the 
decorations of this church), standing on each side of her. 
The hanc-d^ eeuvre was executed in 1646 by Mercier, from 
drawings by Lebrun. It is handsome in its way, and 
excellently carved, but utterly out of keeping with the rest 
of the church. It is composed of Ionic columns supporting 
a huge baldachino ; and probably looked its best when it was 
filled with royal personages on high festivals and state 
occasions. Another exquisite example of wood carving 
may be seen in the chapel of Notre-Dame de Compassion, 
forming the retable. It belongs to the latest Gothic period, 
and is covered with a multitude of figures, representing the 
Genealogy and History of the Virgin and the Life and Death 
of Christ. This came from a Belgian church. The organ, 



SAINT-GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS 287 

pulpit, and stall are part of the old furniture, but are not 
remarkable in any way. 

Saint-Germain was formerly a museum of tombs of the 
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ; but the only remain- 
ing ones are the recumbent figures by Laurent Magnier, of 
Etienne d'Aligre, and his sons, both chancellors of France, 
who died respectively in 1635 and 1677; two statues and 
several marble busts which belonged to the mausoleums of 
the house of Rostaing, formerly situated in Saint-Germain, 
and in a chapel of the monastery of the Feuillants ; and an 
epitaph of a lady of Mortemart, Duchess of Lesdiguieres, 
who died in 1740. Under the church is a crypt full of 
bones, symmetrically arranged as in the catacombs : it was 
excavated in 1746-7 as a burial-place for the parishioners. 

Amongst the tombs of a crowd of courtiers and states- 
men were those of Malherbe, the poet ; Andre Dacier, the 
savant; the painters Coypel, Houasse, Stella, and Santerre ; 
the sculptors Sarazin, Desjardins, and Coyzevox; the med- 
allist Warin ; the goldsmith Balin ; the engraver Israel 
Sylvestre ; the architects Louis Levau and Francois Dorbay ; 
the geographer Sanson ; and the Comte de Caylus, the dis- 
tinguished antiquary j but they have all disappeared. The 
grandest tomb was that erected by Charles V. to his jester. 
But even in the time of Sauval this curious work of art was 
no more. 

A few fragments of former monuments have found a 
quiet resting-place in the Louvre, in the Renaissance 
Museum. Calvin lived near Saint-Germain j and at the 



288 PARIS 

dean's house, between the Louvre and the church, a celeb- 
rity of another kind died suddenly on Easter-Eve, 1599 
— "/tf belle Gahrielle d'Esirees." The Marecha Id'Ancre 
(Concini) was also buried at Saint-Germain after his assas- 
sination ; but the body was torn from the grave the next 
Jay by an infuriated mob, who drew it through the street 
on hurdles, then hung it, and finally burnt it. 



THE CAFi: 

THEODORE DE BANFILLE 

IMAGINE a spot where you do not suffer the horror 
of being alone, and where, nevertheless, you are as 
free as if in solitude. There, disembarrassed of the 
dust, the weariness, and the vulgarities of housekeeping, 
you dream at your ease, comfortably seated before a table 
not incumbered by all that forcibly oppresses you in your 
houses ; for if any useless objects or papers became piled 
up there, you would have soon taken care to have them 
removed. You smoke slowly and tranquilly like a Turk, 
following your ideas through the blue spirals. 

If it is your pleasure to enjoy some warm or refreshing 
beverage, well-appointed servants bring it to you immedi- 
ately. If it pleases you to converse with men of intelli- 
gence who will not tyrannize over you, you have at hand 
light leaves, upon which are printed winged and rapid 
thoughts, written for you and which you will not be forced 
to have bound for preservation in a library when they have 
ceased to please you. This spot, the paradise of civiliza- 
tion, the last and inviolable refuge of the free man, is the 
Cafe. 

It is the Cafe, but an ideal one, such as we dream of and 
such as it should be. The lack of space and the fabulous 
price of land on the boulevards of Paris in reality make it 

289 



290 PARIS 

hideous. In these little boxes, the rent of which equals 
that of a palace, a man would be foolish to hunt for a 
cloak-room. Therefore the walls are decorated with stove- 
pipe hats and with overcoats hung on hooks, an abominable 
effect which they try to counterbalance by lavish use of 
white panels and ignoble gilding, imitated by economic 
processes. 

Moreover, do not let us deceive ourselves, the overcoat 
which we never know what to do with, and which is 
always a source of anxiety to us, in the world, at the 
theatre, and at fetes, constitutes the great burden and the 
abominable slavery of modern life. Happy for the nobles 
of the time of Louis XIV., who dressed themselves in the 
morning for the whole day, the brow protected by a wig, 
clothed in satin and velvet which, even when beaten by 
the storm, remains superb ; and who, moreover, as brave as 
lions, risked inflammation of the lungs, when they put on 
one above the other the innumerable vests of Jodelet, in 
Les Precieuses ridicules ! 

How shall I find my overcoat and my wife's wrap is the 
great and universal cry, the monologue of Hamlet and of 
the modern man, which poisons every moment of his life 
and makes the thought of death supportable to him. On 
the morning of a fete given by Marshal MacMahon, noth- 
ing could be found, the overcoats had evaporated, the 
mantles of satin and swan's-down, and the lace fichus had 
vanished in smoke, and, under the snow which was falling 
in thick flakes, the women had to flee wildly, bare-shoul- 



THE CAFE 291 

dered, while their husbands tried to button up their black 
dress-coats which would not button. 

One evening at a fete given by the President of the 
Chambre des Deputes, when the gardens were illuminated 
with the electric lights, Gambetta suddenly wanted to show 
some of his guests some curiosity or other. He invited 
them to descend with him into the groves. A valet has- 
tened and quickly brought him an overcoat ; but the guests 
did not dare to ask for theirs and followed Gambetta into 
the gardens in evening-dress ! I think, however, that one 
or two of them survived. 

At the Cafe no one takes the overcoats, no one conceals 
them; but they are hung up and displayed on the walls like 
pictures by great masters ; they are treated like the portraits 
of La Joconde or Violante, and you have this before your 
eyes, you incessantly see it. Have you not some cause to 
curse the moment when your eyes saw the light for the first 
time ? As I have said, one can read the papers ; that is to 
say one might read them if they were not fixed in those 
abominable frames that set them a mile away from you and 
force you to see them on the horizon. 

As for the beverages, abandon all hope ; for the master 
of the Cafe lacks room to prepare them, and he pays too 
enormous a rent not to be forced to make up by the 
quality of what he sells. But even if this reason did not 
exist, people drink too many things there for them to be 
good, and what one finds least of all in the Cafe is coffee ! 
It is delicious and divine in the little oriental shops where 



292 PARIS 

it is made specially for each customer at the moment in a 
little special coffee-pot. As for syrups, how should there 
be any in Paris, and in what chimerical spot should one 
range the jars containing the fruit-juices necessary for their 
manufacture? A few real ladies, rich, well-born, and good 
managers, who have not been reduced to slavery by the big 
shops, and who put neither rouge nor cosmetic on their 
cheeks, still know at home in the country how to make 
good syrups with the fruits from their gardens and orchards. 
They neither give nor sell them to the cafes, naturally, and 
keep them for the enjoyment of their little golden-haired 
children. 

Such as it is, with all its faults and vices, and even a full 
century after the celebrity of Procope, the Cafe, the 
memories of which we cannot suppress, has been the asylum 
and refuge of many charming spirits. The old Tabourey, 
which, after having been illustrious, has now become semi- 
popular, with a pewter counter, formerly heard the de- 
lightful conversations between Barbey d'Aurevilly, for 
whose presence the noblest salons disputed; and who 
sometimes preferred to converse seated at the marble table 
in a room whence could be seen the foliage and flower-beds 
of the Luxembourg. Baudelaire also talked there, with his 
clear and caressing voice, letting fall diamonds and pearls 
from his beautiful red, though somewhat thick, lips like the 
princess in the fairy tale. 

Long ago, in the Rue de I'Ancienne-Comedie, the Cafe 
Dagnaux belonged to an original person who valued the 



THE CAFE 293 

joys of the mind above everything. It was in the mytho- 
logical and vanished period of Bohemia. This disinter- 
ested proprietor gave up an enormous room to amiable 
young people w^ho did not ovi^n a sou^ and w^ho, therefore, 
did not spend anything, but vv^ho, w^ith inexhaustible spright- 
liness, exchanged joyous speeches. Among them w^ere 
Miirger, Wallon, Pierre Dupont vi^ith his fair Apollo locks, 
and others, besides, and, almost always, two or three pretty 
girls who, unlike Chrysale, cared less about good soup than 
about fine language and found themselves to their wishes. 
While the prodigious protechnics, the dazzling images and 
the conflagration of words and phrases were burning, some- 
times the master of the Cafe timidly stole to the door of 
the room without making any noise and greedily listened. 
Oh, age of Astraea ! that was his way of collecting payment. 
At the old Cafe of the Theatre-Fran^ais, before its trans- 
formation, already ancient, like a white and gold bonbonniere^ 
the habitues might admire the great critic Gustave Planche 
writing, on a green board used by the card-players, his 
murderous articles, whose victims are" still in good health, 
or have died of something else. Inspired or furious, he 
was superb, with his noble head of a Roman emperor and 
his beautiful smile, but he was always uncombed and 
through his gaping shirt his black hairy breast could be 
seen. For Planche made the weak troop of mortals trem- 
ble, but he never had studs in his shirt except when the 
great Buloz imperiously ordered him to put on clean things 
to dine with foreign diplomats. 



294 PARIS 

On the contrary, it was in the fine dress of an elegant 
poet that Louis Bouilhet, with his moustache and his long 
hair of a Gallic chieftain, wrote his dramas in verse in a 
little Cafe in the Rue Taranne. As he was handsome, 
with strength, boldness, and kindness whilst writing his 
proud Alexandrienes, the mistress of the Cafe spent her 
time in watching him with respectful curiosity. The wait- 
ers, who also admired him, conquered and stupefied, com- 
pletely forgot or rather disdained to serve the other people. 
So much so, that the disappointed customers did not come 
again and abandoned the quiet little Cafe to Louis Bouilhet 
and his glorious copy. Alas ! They had every chance to 
return and resume their old places, for the Norman poet 
died too young, when he still might have written so many 
beautiful odes and comedies. 

A problem that has no possible solution holds the Parisian 
artists and writers in check. When one has energetically 
worked and hewn all through the day, during the little 
stroll before dinner it is good to sit down for an instant and 
find one's friends and talk with them about everything but 
politics. The only place favourable for these improvised 
and necessary gatherings is the Cafe; but is the game 
worth the candle, or, more exactly speaking, the shaded gas- 
lights ? For the pleasure of exchanging a few words must 
one submit to the criminal absinthes, the unnatural bitters, 
the tragic vermouths mixed in the sombre laboratories of 
the Cafes by frightful Locustas ^ 

Aurolien Scholl, who, as a delicate poet and an excellent 



THE CAFE 295 

writer, is naturally a practical man, had a genial idea. He 
desired a continuation of the gatherings in the Cafes at the 
absinthe hour, but without the absinthe. A very honest 
man, who was to have been chosen expressly for the pur- 
pose would have poured out for the loungers some very 
fine Bordeaux wine with quinquina, which would have the 
double advantage, first of not poisoning them, and, secondly, 
of offering them a wholesome and comforting beverage. 
But this seductive dream has not been realized ; for cer- 
tainly honest men exist in large numbers among the Cafe- 
owners as in other industries ; but the honest man has not 
been found — particularly one who would procure quinquina 
wine in which there was both wine and quinquina. 

At the Palais-Royal there was a Cafe that had preserved 
its decorations of the empire and its oil-lights. There 
one found real wine, real coffee, real milk, and good beef- 
steak. There used to lunch Roqueplan, Arsene Houssaye, 
Michel Levy, and a handsome Fiorentino, who knew how 
to make and serve him morilles. The master of the Cafe 
said that on the day when he could no longer live by sell- 
ing genuine things, he would not lose his money but he 
would sell his furniture and shut up shop. He did it as he 
said he would. He was a hero. 



THE LOUVRE 

CHJRLES DICKENS, JR. 

THE word Louvrt\ according to one definition, comes 
from an old Saxon word Louvear^ which signified 
a castle ; or it has been derived from Loupara 
(louverie)^ from lupus^ because wolves were common in the 
woods where the palace now stands. Dagobert, king of the 
Franks in the first half of the Seventh Century, used to 
lodge here his hunting-dogs, his horses, and his huntsmen. 
The place, such as it was, long continued as a hunting-seat 
near to Paris on the banks of the Seine. About 1204, 
Philip Augustus built a fortress here, which served partly as 
palace and partly as prison. Probably before that time there 
had been a residential castle of some kind. Charles V., 
about 1370, improved the Louvre; and extended the forti- 
fications encircling Paris so as to make the palace come 
within the walls. It was there he lived when in Paris, and 
there also he placed his library of nine hundred and ten 
volumes. In 1528 Francois I. caused the whole castle to 
be pulled down, and ordered Pierre Lescot to build a palace 
suitable for a king of France. By slow degrees the build- 
ing progressed under different kings. After the death of 
Henri II., his widow, Catherine de Medici, in 1564, began 
Le Palais des Tuileries. Catherine also extended the walls 

of the Louvre on the south side. Henri IV. added to the 

296 



THE LOUVRE 297 

Tuileries, and he conceived the idea of joining the Tuileries 
and the Louvre together, so as to form one whole palace, 
but his project was not realized until very many years after- 
ward. Louis XIIL also added to the Louvre, and so did 
Louis XIV. The most remarkable part of the work that 
was added under the reign of Louis XIV. is the great col- 
onnade facing the east, in front of the Eglise Saint-Germain 
I'Auxerrois between the Seine and the Rue de Rivoli, and 
standing at right angles with them both. This was designed 
by Claude Perrault. In the reign of Louis XIV. was also 
constructed the greater part of the north and the south sides 
of the Cour du Louvre — that is, the sides facing the Rue 
de Rivoli on the north and the Seine on the south. In the 
Eighteenth Century little progress was made; but in 1805 
Napoleon restored and completed the great courtyard, and 
to him are due nearly all the interior constructions ; for 
until then, except in one corner of the building, the palace 
contained little but the outside walls. Napoleon's work 
went on until 18 14, and from that time until Napoleon III. 
became emperor of France no important fresh additions or 
improvements were made. In 1852 the work was again 
begun, and proceeded very rapidly. To Napoleon III. 
must be given the honour of joining together the Louvre 
with the Tuileries. Over the Pavilion Sully, on the side 
facing the Place du Carrousel, there is a marble slab upon 
which is written : 

1541. Francois I. began the Louvre. 

1564. Catherine de Medici began the Tuileries. 



298 PARIS 

1852-57. Napoleon III. joined together the Tuileries 
and the Louvre. 

We may with tolerable accuracy draw a line between the 
two palaces, and say that the buildings on the east side of 
the gateways, through which the omnibuses and carriages 
pass on the north and on the south sides of the Place du 
Carrousel, belong to the Louvre, and on the west side of 
these gateways to the Tuileries. We sometimes see in 
books the expression " Le vieux Louvre," or " The old 
Louvre " ; by this is meant the square courtyard now called 
La Cour du Louvre. It was in the southwest corner of this 
square that stood the old tower or prison built by Philip 
Augustus, and restored by Charles V. In speaking of the 
Place du Carrousel it is said that as late as 1830 buildings 
were still standing upon the site of the present large Place. 
And we may argue that the design of Henri IV. to unite 
the Louvre with the Tuileries was considered as affecting 
only the south side, or the side near to the river; for be- 
tween the two palaces, in the year 1604, was constructed 
the large house known as the Hotel de Rambouillet, from 
which was taken the name of that celebrated coterie of 
friends who used to meet there more or less frequently in 
the room that was always known as " le salon bleu." The 
house is always spoken of as being in the Rue Saint-Thomas 
du Louvre, a street that ran from north to south across 
which we now call the Place du Carrousel. To join to- 
gether on both sides the Louvre with the Tuileries, leaving 
a large open space between them, such as we now see, was 



THE LOUVRE 299 

probably not then considered for a moment ; for besides the 
Hotel de Rambouillet there was more than one other large 
private house that from its position would have interfered 
with such a scheme, and there was also the old hospital, 
Les Quinze Vingts, that stood directly between the two 
royal palaces. 

Having very briefly sketched the history of the building 
itself, let us resume shortly some of the treasures to be 
found in the palace. It was Francois I. who first began to 
collect those works of art that we now see in the Louvre. 
They had for many years before been kept at Fontaine- 
bleau. Until Colbert became Louis XIV.'s minister in 
166 1 little was added. Colbert appointed Lebrun director 
of the Louvre, and until the close of the Seventeenth 
Century pictures were bought, though many of them were 
intended to decorate the royal apartments at Versailles. At 
different times in the Eighteenth Century purchases were 
made, and in 1791 the Constituent Assembly ordered that 
the Louvre should be the general depot of all the master- 
pieces of science and art. In 1793 the collection received 
the name Musee National, and afterwards Musee Fran- 
^ais. There were then five hundred and thirty-seven 
pictures. The greater number of pictures now in the 
galleries have therefore been acquired since the commence- 
ment of the present century. Napoleon I. added many. 
There was a large civil list allowed for the purchase of 
pictures, and when Napoleon III. came to the throne he 
placed the museum under the direction of a minister of state. 



PLACE DU CARROUSEL 

MARQUIS DE MONTEREAU 

THE Place du Carrousel is the link between the 
Louvre and the Tuileries, the absolute monarchy 
and the constitutional government. Across this 
square the whole of Europe has passed, we may read in 
letters of blood the entire political history of France since 
Louis XIV. And what a history, great heaven ! Interro- 
gate the guests of the Tuileries ; ask the oldest inhabitants 
of the palace ; there is not one who would not tremblingly 
repeat this couplet of our illustrious Bcranger : 

Foiii des mkcoutents ! 
Comvie balayeuu on me loge, 

Depuis quarante atis, 
Dans U ch&teau pris de rhorloge. 

Or, vies etifants, sachez 

Que Id pour tnes ptchis, 
Du coin d' oit le soir je ne bouge, 

Jai vu le petit homme rouge. 

The little red man is the sole historiographer of the 
Place du Carrousel, as Chodruc-Duclos is the true chron- 
icler of the Palais-Royale. 

Vous figurez-vous 
Ce diable habilU d'icarlate, 

Bossu, louclie et roux ; 
Un serpent lui sert de cravate ; 

II a le nez crochu ; 

II a le pied four chu ; 
Su voix rauqtie en chantant prksage 

Au chateau graird remu'-niinage, 
300 



PLACE DU CARROUSEL 301 

Does not this allegorical demon affect you like an evil 
prognostication? He is the evil augur of political my- 
thology, and so we find him appearing for the first time at 
the majority of Louis XIV., under the trees in Mile, de 
Montpensier's garden j he was the genius of revolution 
who breathed the spirit of rebellion into that ardent and 
passionate soul. The apparition of the little red man 
always preceded some great catastrophe ; this time he an- 
nounced the Fronde, and the stone blocks of the day of 
the Barricades soon served to pave the Place du Carrousel. 

Until that time, this vast and waste space, situated be- 
tween the Louvre and the Tuileries, had been a mere miry 
desert full of sewers and sloughs ; you might go there but 
could not be sure of returning. When Mile, de Mont- 
pensier came into the world, if we may believe a con- 
temporary poet, this swamp suddenly changed into a bed 
of flowers : in that happy century of gallantry and fine 
language, madrigals flourished in the open field; may 
not Mademoiselle's garden have seen some of them spring 
to life? However that may be, until 1655 beautiful trees, 
green sward and rare flowers usurped the place of paving- 
stones ; nothing but the omnipotent will of the great king 
was needed to substitute nature for nothingness. It is 
true that that king had adopted the sun as an emblem, and 
what could gardens do against the sun's will ? Besides, 
did not Louis XIV. select this place as the theatre of one 
of those splendid fetes that inaugurated his reign, the name 
of which served as a baptism for the Place du Carrousel? 



302 PARIS 

In that pir^ the king himself appeared costumed as Cjesar, 
although wearing an enormous wig, to play a part in 
public -, he led the Quadrille of the Romans. Monsieur 
commanded the Persians, M. le prince the Turks, M. le 
due the Muscovites, and M. de Guise, the Moors. The 
whole court took part in this royal entertainment which only 
cost a trifling twelve hundred thousand livres. 

While the court thus amused itself at the people's ex- 
pense, the people in return sang songs about the court and 
pitilessly railed at the display of bad taste of which it had 
given proof on this occasion ; pamphlets, satires and epigrams 
rained from all directions upon the unlucky actors; nothing 
was spared, not even the place that had served as their stage. 

The revolution of '89 is only one chapter in the history 
of the Carrousel, the most sanguinary perhaps, but not the 
most curious. The last act of the great political comedy 
of the 1 8th hruma'ire was the installation of Bonaparte at 
the Tuileries. This was one step taken toward royalty : 
the first and greatest of all. From the Luxembourg to 
the Tuileries, there was an abyss ; Bonaparte crossed it by 
making a bridge of his two colleagues, Cambaceres and 
Lebrun. By the aid of an ingenious fraud, he changed 
the name of the old palace of the kings : the Tuileries 
were called the government. Two architects, MM. 
Peyre and Fontaine, were charged with the decoration and 
embellishment ; under the pretext of cleaning all the an- 
archical emblems, all the seditious sentences and all the 
revolutionary devices that had covered the walls and vaults 



PLACE DU CARROUSEL 303 

were effaced. Liberty was whitewashed just as the fleurs- 
de-lis had been erased ; the sponge was passed over all the 
memories of another age and the First Consul entered 
Louis XIV. 's palace like a son into his ancestral abode. 

That was a day of festival for the Place du Carrousel : 
Bonaparte, who remembered the Tenth of August, had 
caused the castle to be isolated ; the Square was cleared of 
the houses that surrounded it, everything was ready ; France 
awaited a master. Suddenly a formidable noise is heard, 
drums beat, people clap their hands, a thousand shouts and 
acclamations rise into the, air; the cannon roars. Napoleon 
arrives in an open carriage drawn by six white horses and 
surrounded by a brilliant staff. On the Carrousel the car- 
riage stops, the First Consul alights, springs on horseback, 
and, before the eyes of a whole nation intoxicated, inaugu- 
rates that little hat that became so popular. The tattered 
flags of the 96th, 43d and 30th regiments defile before 
their young leader. Bonaparte uncovers his brow and 
bows, the army trembles and the populace applauds. At 
this moment the conqueror of Egypt is as great as the pyra- 
mids from whose tops forty centuries have watched his ex- 
ploits ; at this moment everything effaces itself before him ; 
he has already set his foot upon the first step of the throne, 
he has taken possession of Louis XVI. 's room and Louis 
XIV. 's cabinet ; Josephine is already installed in the queen's 
apartment and in another hour the new sovereign will re- 
ceive the homage of the diplomatic body with that ease and 
grace that are woman's true royalty. 



304 PARIS 

The year that opened thus passed like a fairy dream 
amid the triumphs of our arms ; every cannon-shot heard 
in Europe had a glorious echo in the Place du Carrousel. 
The explosion of the Rue Saint-Nicaise only resulted in 
hastening the accomplishment of Caesar's dearest wish ; he 
went out a consul and returned an emperor. After that 
it was only a question of form. Pius VII. could not refuse 
the crown to one who had given him the tiara, and Paris 
attended that imposing and solemn spectacle of a little 
soldier of fortune so aggrandized by his own genius that the 
Pope could place the crown upon his brow without lower- 
ing himself. 

The Pope's stay, the emperor's divorce, the Arch- 
duchess Marie's marriage, and the king of Rome's birth, 
all belong to the history of the Carrousel ; but are only un- 
important episodes in the frame of our picture. 

On March 31, 1814, the Empire was no longer, the Res- 
toration began. Since '93 not the slightest mirth-provok- 
ing word had been heard at the Tuileries, so that the Res- 
toration was joyfully received ; brought about by M. de 
Talleyrand, it could not be other than a restoration of wit, 
though an ephemeral one, lasting only as long as an epi- 
gram. " Louis XVIII. only had time to sleep in Napoleon's 
sheets." So when Napoleon arrived he found his bed 
made j which explains the ease with which he gained pos- 
session of it. The rocket of the Hundred Days took its 
flight, blazed and then went out, and on July 8, 18 15, 
Louis XVIII. resumed possession of that bed so often dis- 



PLACE DU CARROUSEL 305 

puted. Everything leads us to believe that this time he 
took care to have the sheets changed. 

Then, for the first time, Cossacks were seen bivouacing and 
hostile guns drawn up on the Place du Carrousel. During 
this time, the populace was attacked with vertigo, delirium 
seized every brain ; all who approached the Carrousel and 
the Tuileries seemed immediately to lose their reason ; the 
greatest ladies danced the farandole beneath the windows of 
the castle, mingling with the mob; the men were without 
courage and the women without shame. It was infamy be- 
come epidemic. 

Now we reach a difficult epoch, wherein the history of 
the Carrousel is so bound up with the history of the Restor- 
ation that a volume would be required merely to graze the 
facts we meet with. 

Charles X. mounted the throne and, before the Place du 
Carrousel had noticed his presence, he had descended. 
We will finish with two events that alone made a great 
noise in the square. The first, in order of time, be it un- 
derstood, was the death of M. de Talleyrand. The second 
was much more serious and sad : we refer to the Due 
d' Orleans. On learning of the death of Armand Carrel, 
that enlightened chief of the liberal party, it is said that the 
Due d' Orleans uttered this noble expression of noble re- 
gret : " It is a misfortune for the whole world." Well, on 
the death of the prince, it was found that all the world was 
of the same opinion. 



THE PALAIS-ROYALE 

H. MONIN 

THE Palais-Royale covers a space 405 metres long 
by 123 wide between the Rue Saint-Honore, the 
Place du Palais-Royale and that of the Theatre- 
FVan^ais, the Rue de Montpensier, the Rue de Bcaujolais and 
the Rue de Valois. The palace, properly so called, faces 
the Place du Palais-Royale which has been more than 
doubled by the cutting through of the Rue de Rivoli. It 
comprises a ground-floor and a story with mansards. A 
portico of six arcades, with grilles, entablature, and balustrades 
unites the pavilions. The ground-floor of the principal 
body is of the Doric Order, and the first story of the Ionic ; 
each of the pavilions has four Ionic columns with triangular 
pediments. The middle part contains the gate of honour 
(a triple doorway with eight Doric coupled columns) then 
three arcades open into the vestibule of the palace, composed 
of a central pavilion adorned with six Ionic coupled col- 
umns, surmounted with a pilastered attic story with semi- 
circular pediment. All this part of the palace faces the 
south. On the north, in an interior court, it presents a 
facade comprising a ground-floor in arcades and a first story 
distributed among ten composite columns. The two sides 
on the east and west extend in lateral buildings on porticos 

that join the Orleans gallery which is partly glazed and 

306 



THE PALAIS-ROYALE 307 

partly surmounted by terraces at the height of the first story 
of the palace. This gallery marks the beginning of the 
palais marchand^ that is to say those buildings devoted to 
trade, surrounding a garden 250 metres long by 95 wide 
(207 arcades or porticos). The garden is planted with 
trees in alleys and ornamented with flower-beds and a 
central basin and fountain. 

The first buildings, in place of the Hotel de Mercceur 
and Hotel de Rambouillet, were ordered by Cardinal Richelieu 
from the architect Lemercier (1629-36) ; they were called 
the Palais-Cardinal, and Corneille declared in Le Menteur^ 
" that the whole universe could not show anything to equal 
the superb exterior of the Palais-Cardinal." Louis XHI. 
inherited it as a legacy from his minister and it became in 
reality Palais-Royale by its selection as the habitual residence 
of the regent Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV. For 
some time also it sheltered the widow of Charles L of Eng- 
land, Henrietta Maria of France. In 1661, Louis XIV. 
gave it as a residence to his brother, the Duke of Orleans, 
who enlarged and decorated it and entered into possession 
in 1692 (letters patent February), and in 1701 left it to his 
son, who, on becoming regent in the name of Louis XV., 
further embellished it and added a celebrated gallery of 
pictures. This gallery, expurgated, it is said, by Louis, the 
son of the regent (1723-52), assumed the proportions of 
a real museum under Louis-Philippe. But in 1763 the 
Opera was burnt and, as it then adjoined the palace, the 
latter was also partly consumed. The three parts of the 



3o8 PARIS 

present building, due to P. L. Moreau, date from that time. 
In 1780, Louis-Philippe Joseph, then Duke de Chartres, had 
the trade-palace built by Louis; it was completed in 1784. 
A second burning of the Opera (1781) gave occasion to the 
building (1786) of the Theatre des Varictcs atnusantes^ now 
the Comedie Franfalse. In 1790, the Duke of Orleans had 
already let one hundred and sixty of the one hundred and 
eighty arcades that then surrounded the garden, which had 
brought him in more than ten millions. Not all of the 
changes of that period were happy. Richelieu's superb 
chestnut-trees disappeared ; a circus, partly underground 
(1786-99), was constructed in the centre. The arcades, 
the garden, and especially the wooden gallery became the 
ordinary meeting-place of libertines, loose women, gam- 
blers, and stock-jobbers, as well as foreigners who judged 
Paris and France by what they found there. Like the 
Temple and the Luxembourg, the Palais-Royale was 
still a privileged place and a kind of asylum for delin- 
quents on the eve of the Revolution. On April, 1787, 
the king addressed a letter to the Duke of Orleans in order 
that " the police-officers may freely make search " in his 
palace "as in all other places" in view of "the multiplicity 
of makers of false notes." The royal gardens (Tuileries, 
etc.) were only open to people of good society, *' well 
dressed " ; " illicit " and popular assemblages were dreaded ; 
it was the Duke of Orleans who was the first to give them 
every facility and to assure them a relative impunity. The 
Palais-Royale was consequently the centre and the hearth of 



THE PALAIS-ROYALE 309 

the first revolutionary proceedings. Having become entirely 
national after Philippe-Egalite had been condemned to death, 
it v^^as almost abandoned to the deprecatory and mercantile 
fancies of its tenants. After the Eighteenth Brumaire^ the 
Tribunat vi^as installed there until its suppression in 1807, 
and then came the turn of the Bourse and of the Tribunal 
of Commerce. Louis XVIII. , with whom the son of 
Egalite had made his reconciliation, restored his palace; 
Louis-Philippe constructed the glass gallery called the Or- 
leans Gallery (by Fontaine), besides separating the left 
wing from the palace, raising the central building one story, 
extending the right wing from the theatre to the garden, 
building the pavilions that connect the court of honour 
with the trade-palace, and finally, restoring the theatre. It 
was in this palace that, after the Journees dejuilkt, he accepted 
the title of King of the French, but he ceased to dwell there 
October i, 1831. Under the second republic, the Palais- 
Royale was the residence of the Comptolr d'escompte and the 
staff of the National Guards. At first only sequestrated, it 
was afterward confiscated by presidential decree, January 
23, 1852. Under the second empire, it became the residence 
of the " King " Jerome and his son. Prince Napoleon. 
Louis-Philippe's picture gallery was sacked in 1848; and 
Prince Napoleon's (allegorical paintings by Hedoin, among 
others) in 1871. It is now occupied by the Cour des 
Comptes^ and by the Council of State since 1875. At the 
end of the Montpensier gallery and northeast of the trade 
palace, is a little theatre-hall of eight hundred seats, built in 



310 PARIS 

1785, which has borne the successive names of Theatre de 
Beaujolais^ or des Marionettes^ Theatre de Mile, de Montansier 
(the directress) in 1790, Theatre de la Montagne^ and lastly 
Theatre du Palah-Royale^ celebrated by the traditional gaiety 
of its repertory. 



LA MADELEINE 

PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 

THE church of the Magdalen (Madeleine) is curiously 
connected with the history of Napoleon I., who 
had the incompleted edifice continued with the 
strange intention of dedicating it as a temple to the mem- 
ory of La Grande Armee. Every year on the anniversaries 
of Austerlitz and Jena, the temple was to have been il- 
luminated and a discourse delivered concerning the military 
virtues, with an eulogy of those who perished in the two 
battles. This intention was never carried out, and the 
building, which had been begun in 1764 as a church, was 
finished as a church under the reign of Louis-Philippe. 
Nothing could apparently be more decided in architectural 
intentions than the Madeleine as we see it now. It seems 
to be plainly a temple, and never to have been intended for 
anything else. In reality, however, it was begun under 
Louis XV. as a church, resembling what is now the Pan- 
theon, and the change of plan was carried into effect many 
years after the works had been actually commenced. It is 
not by any means a subject of regret that this temple should 
have been erected in Paris, as it gives many students of 
architecture who have not visited the south of Europe an 
excellent opportunity iox feeling what an antique temple was 
like, to a degree that is not possible with no more powerful 



312 PARIS 

teachers than photographs or small models. VioUet-le-Duc 
said that it was barbarous to build the copy of a Greek tem- 
ple in Paris or London, or among the mists of Edinburgh, 
condemning alike the Madeleine and the fragmentary Scot- 
tish copy of the Parthenon ; but surely a student of archi- 
tecture, born in the north, would visit both the Scottish 
Parthenon and the Parisian temple with great interest, sim- 
ply because they show him columns on their own scale, 
real columns in the open air. We are so accustomed to 
Gothic and Renaissance churches that a temple is an ac- 
ceptable variety, were it only to demonstrate, by actual com- 
parison, the immense superiority of more modern forms for 
purposes of Christian worship. We ought to bear in mind, 
however, that although the Madeleine resembles a Corinthian 
temple externally, it has not the surroundings of such a 
temple and is not associated with its uses. For Christian 
architecture, on the other hand, such a system of building 
involves a great waste of money and space in the colon- 
nades and the passages between them and the walled build- 
ing or cella. The space in the Madeleine, already so re- 
stricted, is limited still farther by internal projections in- 
tended to divide the length into compartments and to give 
a reason for six lateral chapels, so that every one who en- 
ters it for the first time is surprised by the smallness of the 
interior. I need hardly observe that there is not the slight- 
est attempt to preserve the internal arrangements of a 
Greek temple, even if they were precisely known, on which 
architects are not agreed. The side chapels have arches 



LA MADELEINE 313 

over them, the roof is vaulted with round arches across the 
building, springing from the Corinthian columns, and in 
each section is a dome-ceiling with a circular light (as in 
the Pantheon at Rome), these lights being the only windows 
in the edifice. The high altar is in a round apse en ml de 
four^ with marble panels and a hemicycle of columns be- 
hind the altar. There is great profusion of marbles of 
various kinds, of gilding, and of mural painting, that I have 
not space to describe in detail. Enough has been said to 
show that the work, as a whole, is a combination of Greek, 
Roman, and French ideas. The general idea of the ex- 
terior is Greek, but if you examine details, you see the in- 
fluence of Rome, and you find it still more strongly marked 
inside, by the arches of the roof. The French spirit is 
shown in the decoration chiefly, which is so truly Parisian 
that the Madeleine is instinctively preferred by fashionable 
people. A fashionable marriage there is one of the most 
thoroughly consistent spectacles to be seen in modern Paris. 
Here is nothing to remind us of the austerity of past ages, 
but the gilded youth of to-day may walk along soft carpets, 
amid an odour of incense and flowers and the sounds of 
mellifluous music. The pretty ceremony over, they pass 
out down the carpeted steps, and an admiring crowd watches 
them into their carriages. And nobody thinks about the 
dead at Austerlitz and Jena. 



LA MADELEINE 

fFILLIJM MAKEPEACE TH ACKER Ar 

WE went to the Madeleine (the walk round it 
under the magnificent Corinthian columns 
is one of the noblest things possible), and 
entered the gorgeous hall of white marble and gold, with 
its inner roof of three circular domes ranging the length 
of the building, with a semi-dome covering the northern 
end over the altar, and a circular vault covering the 
vestibule. Galignani's guide-book (one of the best, most 
learned, and most amusing books of the kind that have 
been published) will give you a full account of the place, 
as of all others that sightseers frequent. It is as fine, 
certainly, as fine can be in its details, and vast and liberal 
in its proportions. Well, fancy a beautiful, gorgeous, ele- 
gant Brobdignac cafe^ or banqueting room, and the Made- 
leine will answer completely. It does not seem to contain 
a single spark of religion — no edifice built in the Greek 
fashion ever did. Why should we be prejudiced in favour 
of the Gothic ? Why should pointed arches, and tall 
steeples, and grey buttresses, built crosswise, seem to ex- 
press — to be, as it were, the translation into architecture of 
our religion ? Is it true, or is it only an association of 
ideas ? You, who have been born since Gothic architec- 
ture was dead, can best answer the query. 

3H 





-rur 



iLU.julj i i ; jti i i. I i i.i 1 1 ij^ I ft 1 1 til inty 



A 



BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS 

HO NO RE DE BALZAC 

T seven o'clock not a footstep resounds upon the 
flag-stones, not the rolling of a single carriage 
grates upon the pavement. The Boulevard 
awakens about half-past eight v^^ith the noise of several 
cabs, beneath the heavy tread of occasional and laden port- 
ers, and to the cries of numerous workmen in blouses going 
to their occupation. Not a blind has been opened; the 
shops are shut up like oysters. This is an unknown spec- 
tacle to many Parisians, who believe that the Boulevard is 
always adorned, even as they believe with their favourite 
critic, that lobsters are born red. At nine o'clock the 
Boulevard washes its feet all along the line, its shops open 
their eyes, revealing a terrible disorder within. A few mo- 
ments later, it is bustling as a grisette, and some intriguing 
frock-coats plough through its sidewalks. Toward eleven 
o'clock, the cabs hurry along to lawsuits, for payments, to 
lawyers, to notaries, bearing along budding failures, junior 
brokers, transactions, intriguers with thoughtful faces, suc- 
cesses slumbering under buttoned-up overcoats, tailors, and 
shirtmakers, in short, all the busy morning world of Paris. 
The Boulevard becomes hungry toward noon, every one 
breakfasts and the brokers of the Bourse arrive. Then, 
from two to five o'clock its life attains its apogee, and it gives 

315 



31 6 PARIS 

its great performance for nothing. Its three thousand shops 
glitter, and the great poem of window-decoration sings its 
strophes in colour from the Madeleine to the Porte Saint- 
Denis. Artists without knowing it, the passers-by play for 
you the chorus of the antique tragedy ; they laugh, they love, 
they weep, they smile, and dream fantastic dreams. They 
come like shadows or will-o'-the-wisps. One does not 
go down two Boulevards without meeting a friend or an 
enemy, an original that causes a laugh or a thought, a 
beggar who is trying to find a sou^ a vaudevilUste who is 
seeking a subject, each one indigent but better off than the 
other. It is there that one observes the comedy of dress. 
So many men, so many different coats : and so many coats, 
so many different characters ! On fine days the women 
show themselves, but not in handsome toilettes. The 
handsome toilettes to-day go to the Avenue des Champs- 
Elysees or to the Bois. Women comme tl faut who walk 
on the Boulevards have only their fancies to satisfy and to 
amuse themselves by shopping j they pass quickly and know 
no one. 



THE BOULEVARDS 

RICHARD WHITE I NG 

THE Boulevards are of four kinds — the inner Bou- 
levards sometimes called the Old or the Grand, 
the outer, the new, and the Boulevards of the 
Enceinte, or the continuous road running just inside the 
line of fortification. Those commonly spoken of as The 
Boulevards extend from the Madeleine to the Bastille, a 
stretch of nearly three miles — to be exact, two and three- 
quarters. The busiest and brightest part is that from the 
Madeleine to and inclusive of the Boulevard des Italiens. 
The Boulevard des Italiens takes the palm for every kind 
of animation. Here the heart, or at any rate the pulse, 
of Paris beats. The Old or Grand Boulevards terminate 
at the Place de la Madeleine. 

317 



THE 0P6RA house 

PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 

THE merit of Parisian architects is to have perceived 
the nevi' necessities in public buildings created by 
streets of magnificent private dwellings. If the 
ordinary architecture of a city is on a large scale and richly 
decorated, its public buildings must still distinguish them- 
selves by greater richness. One consequence of the recon- 
struction of Parisian dwellings has been the rebuilding, in 
whole or in part, of almost all those theatres that happened 
to be near new streets or squares. The Theatre Francais 
had a new front; the Opera was rebuilt with unparalleled 
magnificence ; the Vaudeville had a narrow but strikingly 
rich curved facade at the corner of the Chaussee d'Antin, 
with Corinthian columns and Carvatides and a fronton 
crowned with a statue of Apollo. The new Theatre de la 
Renaissance is a heavy but sumptuous structure, also 
adorned with Caryatides and Corinthian columns. The 
Gaite was rebuilt in i86i with a pretty arcade on marble 
columns in front of its open loggia. The Chatelet was 
built at the same date, and has also its loggia, but with 
statues under the five arches. The neighbouring Theatre 
Historique, ^ which used to be the Lyrique, was also built 

' This became the Theatre des Nations and on Jan. 21, 1899, the 
Thfeatre Sarah Bernhardt.— E. S. 

318 



THE OPERA HOUSE 319 

under Louis Napoleon, though it has been rebuilt since in 
consequence of incendiarism by the Communards. The 
construction of these buildings, and of many others, was 
made a necessity by the handsome new houses. The 
Odeon belongs to the beginning of this century and is a 
plain, respectable structure. It may remain as it is because 
the houses near it are plain, old-fashioned dwellings of the 
same or an earlier date ; but if the Odeon could be placed 
where the Opera is now, it would be too simple for such a 
situation. 

The most magnificent of recent structures, and one of 
the most happily situated is the Opera. The situation has 
been created for it purposely. The front might have looked 
merely across a street, but a new street of great length was 
opened, that it might be seen from a distance. Besides 
this, arrangements were made for the convergence of sev- 
eral other new streets in front of the Opera so as to give its 
site the utmost possible importance. As the houses in these 
streets are all of them lofty and many of them magnificent, 
the Opera itself required both size and richness to hold its 
own in a situation that would have been dangerous to a 
feeble or even a modest architectural performance. The 
Opera was compelled to assert itself strongly, and if it had 
merits they must be of a showy and visible kind, — rather 
those of the sunflower than those of the lily of the valley. 
There can be no question that M. Garnier aimed at the 
right kind of merit, — showy magnificence, — but there are 
opposite opinions about his taste. Like all important con- 



320 PARIS 

temporary efforts, the Opera has its ardent admirers and its 
pitiless critics. Let me tell you a short anecdote about the 
building, which may help us in some measure to arrive at a 
just opinion. Shortly after its completion several distin- 
guished men, who were not architects, met at a Parisian din- 
ner-table, and they criticised M. Garnier with great sever- 
ity. Among them was a provincial architect, who re- 
mained silent till the others appealed to him. Then he 
said : " Gentlemen, when an architect undertakes to erect 
a comparatively small building, it is still a very complex af- 
fair J and how much more so must be such a gigantic work as 
the Opera, where a thousand matters of detail and neces- 
sity have to be provided for, all of which the architect has 
to carry in his mind together, and to reconcile with the ex- 
igencies of art ! Such a task is one of the heaviest and 
longest strains that can be imposed upon the mind of man ; 
and if the architect does not satisfy every one, it may be 
because other people are not aware of the extreme com- 
plexity of the problem." For me I confess that I know 
really nothing about theatres, except that they have myste- 
rious difficulties of their own. I like being outside better 
than inside them. 

Whatever may be thought of the back and sides of the 
Opera, the principal front may be admired without reserve. 
The basement is a massive wall, finished plainly, and 
pierced with seven round arches. In the intervals between 
five of these arches are statues and medallions ; on each 
side of the two exterior ones are groups representing Music, 



THE OPERA HOUSE 321 

Lyrical Poetry, the Lyrical Drama, and the Dance. The 
contrast here of extreme architectural simplicity with figure- 
sculpture is excellent. Above is a colonnade of coupled 
Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, and between 
each two pairs of columns is an open space, in which a 
lower and smaller entablature, with a wall above it, is sup- 
ported on smaller columns of marble. This wall is pierced 
in each interval with a circular opening containing the 
gilded bust of a great musician. Above the great entabla- 
ture, and immediately over each pair of coupled columns, 
is a medallion with supporters, and above each open space 
of the loggia is an oblong panel with sculpture. Then you 
come to the dome of the house and the gable of the struc- 
ture above the stage. The effect of the whole is a combi- 
nation of splendour with strength and durability. The use 
of sculpture has been happy, and the sculpture has not been 
killed by the architecture, as it often is. On the other 
hand, it has lightened the appearance of the architecture, 
especially on the top of the edifice where the colossal 
winged figures are most valuable, — and so is that on the 
apex which holds up the lyre with both hands. 

With regard to the interior, my humble opinion — the 
opinion of one who knows nothing about theatres — is, that 
the business of plotting for splendour has been considerably 
overdone. The foyer is palatial, but it is overcharged with 
heavy ornament, like the palace of some lavish but vulgar 
king. As for poor Paul Baudry's paintings on the ceiling, 
which cost him such an infinity of labour and pains, it 



322 PARIS 

does not in the least signify what he painted or how long it 
will last, for nobody can see his work in its present situ- 
ation. There can hardly be any more deplorable waste of in- 
dustry and knowledge than to devote it to the painting of 
ceilings that we cannot look at without pains in the neck, 
and cannot see properly when we do look at them. The 
grand staircase is more decidedly a success than x)c^z foyer. 
It almost overpowers us by its splendour ; it is full of daz- 
zling light; it conveys a strong sense of height, space, 
openness ; it comes on the sight as a burst of brilliant and 
triumphant music on the ear. The mind has its own satis- 
faction in a work that is splendid without false pretension. 
All the materials are really what they seem. The thirty 
columns are monoliths of marble, every step is of white 
Italian marble, the hand-rail of onyx, supported by balus- 
ters of rouge antique^ on a base of green marble from Sweden. 
We may admire the grand staircase or object to it, but it 
is honest work throughout, and may last a thousand years. 
The architect evidently took pride in it, as he has so 
planned the design that visitors may look down from gal- 
leries on four different stories all round the building. The 
house itself is much less original, with its decoration of 
red and gold, and the customary arrangements for the 
audience. 













yr7 



THE CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 

ALBERT LJFIGNAC 

HE who casts his eyes over the list of members of 
the teaching body of the Conservatoire in the 
year of its foundation (1795) is not a little sur- 
prised to see among them nineteen professors of the clari- 
net and twelve professors of the bassoon. 

To understand what seems to us now an absurdity, and 
yet was not one, we must go back to that period and learn 
how the Conservatoire came to be born. 

At the beginning of the revolution, in 1789, a captain 
of the staff of the National Guard, Bernard Sarrette, who 
was not himself a player, but was very fond of music, took 
under his personal charge forty-five musicians of the 
former Gardes Fran^aises in all that concerned the cost, 
equipment and care of the instruments, and with these 
forty-five musicians he formed the nucleus of the music of 
the Garde Nationale. 

He was reimbursed for his expenses about a year later, 
and, in 1792, he was appointed director of the Ecole 
gratuite de Musique de la Garde Nationale, which we 
must regard as the embryo of our Conservatoire. The 
pupils, to the number of a hundred and twenty-six, be- 
tween the ages of ten and twenty years, had to provide 
themselves with a uniform (of the Garde Nationale, 

323 



324 PARIS 

doubtless), an instrument and music-paper; they were 
bound to the service of the Garde Nationale and public 
festivals. 

If you want to form an idea of the degree of liberty 
that was enjoyed at that period I will tell you that in 1793, 
a pupil having allowed himself to play upon the horn the 
air from Richard Ccvur de Lion; " Richard^ mon Roi" 
the poor Sarrette was put to prison. Being authorized to 
go out when he was needed for the organization for the 
musical part of the festival of the Supreme Being, he could 
not take a step without being escorted by gendarmes, one 
of whom slept in his chamber. 

On the 20 Prairial year II. (1794) a hymn specially 
composed for the occasion was to be given in the Champ 
de Mars. This hymn was ordered from Sarrette on the 
15th by the Committee of Public Safety, and immediately 
composed by Gossec ; it was necessary to teach this chant 
to the people in the four days that followed, by Robe- 
spierre's orders, who made Sarrette responsible for its good 
execution : Gossec took charge of the Ouartier des Halles, 
Lesueur taking the boulevards, and JMehul installing him- 
self before the door of the establishment which was then 
in the Rue Saint-Joseph. 

The hymn, therefore, was learned and executed on the 
appointed day, to the satisfaction of the Committee of 
Public Safety, by a great throng of performers, the whole 
populace singing, accompanied by two hundred drums, one 
hundred of which were furnished by the pupils of the 



CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 325 

School of Music of the Garde Nationale, the other hun- 
dred being ordinary drummers. 

At length, August 3d, 1795 (16 thermidor an III.) two 
laws appeared simultaneously, the first suppressing the 
music of the Garde Nationale as well as its school of sing- 
ing and declamation, as to which precise documents are 
lacking but which goes back to 1786, at least; and the 
other, organizing the Conservatoire de Musique, and in- 
stalling it in the locality of Menus-Plaisirs, says that it 
must teach music to six hundred pupils of both sexes, se- 
lected proportionately in the various departments, and im- 
poses upon it the duty of furnishing a body of musicians 
every day for the service of the Garde Nationale and the 
Corps legislatif. Hence comes the utility of the profusion 
of players on the clarinet and bassoon of which we spoke 
in the beginning. 

On the loth of the same month, Sarrette was ap- 
pointed Director of the Conservatoire, which, as we have 
seen, was born of the fusion between the Institute de 
musique of the Garde Nationale and the Ecole de Chant et 
de Declamation. 

As to the personality of our venerable founder I can tell 
you nothing, not possessing any positive document as to his 
character or private life. There is no doubt that he was a 
man endowed with initiative and persevering will, a strong 
organizer to whom we owe the grouping and creation of 
the £cole Nationale Fran^aise. 

Up to that time France had certainly produced com- 



326 PARIS 

posers of talent and genius but that cohesion was lacking 
which alone can constitute, properly speaking, a school. 

He directed the Conservatoire for twenty years, from 
1795 to 1816. 

His direct successor was Perne, who was director for 
only five years, from 18 17 to 1822. 

Then came Cherubini, from 1823 to 1841 (eighteen 
years); Auber, from 1842 to 1871 (nineteen years); 
Ambroise Thomas, from 1872 to 1896 (twenty-four years) ; 
and lastly Theodore Dubois, the present director since 
1896. 

If I can tell you nothing about Perne, whose short 
directory has very few traces, it is quite otherwise with 
Cherubini, one of the greatest masters who have done 
honour to the French School, and whom people are very 
wrong in neglecting and almost despising to-day. 

It must be confessed that affability was not precisely the 
dominant note of Cherubini's character. Adolphe Adam, 
who was twelve years old when he was presented by a 
friend of his father's, remembered all his life his recep- 
tion. 

" Dear master," said the introducer, " I take great 
pleasure in presenting to you a youth who is destined for 
music and who has capacities, for he is the son of our 
friend Adam ; young as he is, he is already one of your 
enthusiastic admirers. 

" Ah ! Ah ! Ah I Ah ! que ze le trouve bien le ! " 

And he did not say another word. 



CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 327 

In default of good-nature, this man of genius possessed 
a punctuality and an exactitude proof against every- 
thing. 

He arrived at his office at five minutes to nine bringing a 
piece of sugar for his class-attendant's dog. On Monday, 
not having come on Sunday, he brought two. 

At that period the Directors did not reside at the Con- 
servatoire. 

Cherubini lived close by, at No. 19 Faubourg Poisson- 
niere. His successor, Auber, lived at No. 24 Rue Saint- 
Georges in a house that he ovv^ned. Ambroise Thomas was 
the first director to live in the establishment in the apart- 
ment that had previously been occupied by Clapisson, as 
founder and conservator of the Musee Instrumental. 

From 1825 to 187 1, that is to say under Cherubini and 
Auber, a boarding-school existed for twelve singing-schol- 
ars, from whom have come a certain number of singers 
who have since become famous, — Faure, Capoul, Bouhy, 
Melchissedec, Couderc and Bosquin, to mention only a 
few, who were very proud of their uniform (a black over- 
coat with lyres surrounded with palms embroidered in gold 
on the lapels, and the same emblem on the sailor's-cap) 
which made them look like members of a choral society of 
to-day, or pupils of the £cole Niedermayer. They lived 
in the building to the left of the courtyard; their twelve 
rooms were on the second floor, some looking into the 
courtyard and the others into the Rue Bergere, their halls 
for study (the present waiting-room at the examinations) on 



328 PARIS 

the first floor, the refectory on the ground-floor, and the 
kitchen in the basement. 

They had a special porter, who has always been kept 
notwithstanding the suppression of the boarding-school, 
which explains why the Conservatoire possesses three por- 
ters, although it has only two entrances. Here they were 
taught singing and lyrical declamation, and they were also 
expected to learn solfeggio and the elements of the piano. 
From 1822 to 1826 there was also a boarding-school of 
female students at 26 Rue de Paradis. 

Cherubini established an iron discipline over them ; a 
grille of the same metal, always closed like that of the 
prison, existed under the porch ; these young people were 
absolutely forbidden to go out alone ; they could not put 
their nose outside except in a band and accompanied ; su- 
pervision was incessant. Recreation was taken in com- 
mon, in the courtyard when it was fine weather, under the 
vigilant eye of the three porters, a special overseer and the 
Director of the Boarding-School. Their correspondence 
was the object of special attention. It was in fact true 
monastic rule. 

This did not prevent evasions almost every night, since 
almost every morning there were scholars who entered by 
the door. They knew well enough how to get out; but 
they did not know how to get back ; the inmates were tired 
out and Cherubini was furious. In exasperation he ordered 
chains and bars to be put at all the windows. 

For those who did not possess the highest gymnastic pow- 



CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 329 

ers, more sedentary pastimes existed. One day a squirrel, 
belonging probably to one of the inmates, having died, they 
gave it a pompous funeral that lasted not less than three 
days, during which the v^^hole Conservatoire was in effer- 
vescence ; nothing was forgotten, the lying in state of the 
corpse, the chants and the religious ceremonies ; it seems 
that it was very droll, but I would not dare to affirm that 
it was altogether seemly. 

From all this we see that notwithstanding the directoral 
rigours life was not so unendurable as might have been 
thought in the school. 

All those who knew Cherubini say that outside his work 
he was a very affable, gentle and even witty man ; that his 
house was very gay, that he received a great deal and that his 
daughters, whom he tenderly loved, were charming. Not- 
withstanding this I have never heard a truly amiable word of 
his quoted. He never went to first performances by virtue 
of the following principle : " If the work is good it will be 
played again ; if it is bad there is no need for me to hear it." 

However, he generally made exception for the works of 
his pupils. 

If we now pass on to Auber, we shall find ourselves in 
presence of an entirely different character and cast of mind. 
His witticisms cannot be counted. 

From the suppression of the Gymnase Musical Militaire 
(1856 to 1870) there existed at the Conservatoire classes 
for Saxophone, Saxhorn, Solfeggio and Harmony, for the 
exclusive benefit of military pupils, officers and subalterns, 



330 PARIS 

classes in which General Mellinet, commander of the 
Garde Imperiale, who, as is known, was music-mad, took 
particular interest. 

Either because Auber gave up the presidency of the jury 
to him, or simply because of the prestige attached to his 
high personality, General Mellinet exercised great influence 
in the special courses of these military classes, which mani- 
fested itself in a benevolent and sometimes excessive pro- 
pensity to give the greatest possible number of rewards to 
those young people who were only allowed two years for 
passing through the school. One day when he allowed 
himself to be carried away by his natural generosity some- 
what farther perhaps than was reasonable, Auber said to him : 

" Believe me. General, I know the Conservatoire better 
than you, and if you give more rewards than there are 
candidates it might have a bad effect ! " 

The venerable balls that are used at the elections date 
from the foundation of the establishment (1795), and have 
never been renewed nor cleaned. By constant rubbing, the 
black ones have lost not a little of their tint, while the 
white ones have become considerably discoloured, so that 
now they are almost all of a uniform grey, and a certain 
amount of attention is required to distinguish them from 
one another, especially in dull weather. 

If I had the honour of being a journalist, I should un- 
dertake a campaign on this subject ; I should demonstrate 
that it is to this confusion among the balls that must be 
attributed all the absurd judgments that do not agree with 



CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 331 

mine, which are necessarily just and equitable, and I should 
demand that the balls be publicly washed before each 
meeting. 

One of the most typical features of the character of 
Ambroise Thomas was certainly his extreme benevolence, 
his gentleness and his indulgent spirit as well as the kind- 
ness, reflected by his pensive gaze of a gentle philosophy, 
which often degenerated into weakness and sometimes 
manifested itself under the most unexpected forms in spite 
of his sincere desire to be exceedingly firm. 

Among the most amusing types of the old professors 
whom I have known I must place in the first rank him who 
was called "/^ petit pere Elwart" whose succession indi- 
rectly fell upon me, for Theodore Dubois inherited his class 
of harmony in 1872, and I followed him in 1891, when he 
succeeded Leo Delibes in his composition class before he 
became Director. 

Elwart's enduring fame among us rests upon his tremen- 
dous reputation as an orator at banquets, funerals, and tcvm- 
s\c2\ fetes and reunions of every kind. 

At the obsequies of Leborne (also one of our old profess- 
ors), he ended his discourse thus : 

" Leborne had a great sorrow in his heart, he never be- 
longed to the Institute, notwithstanding the numerous at- 
tempts he made to get in." 

Then bending down to the ear of Victorin Joncieres, 
from whom I got this anecdote, he said : " I said that for 
the sake of his family." 



332 PARIS 

The above gentleman also told me the following jest by 
Berlioz when at the point of death : 

*' If Elwart is to speak over my tomb, I'd rather not die 
at all ! " 

Among the public there is a false idea that the Conserva- 
toire is composed of bad characters. This is as great an 
error as it would be to pretend the contrary. The truth is 
that its society is greatly mixed, as is inevitable in an abso- 
lutely free school where the entrance is by examination and 
where among one's comrades one must choose one's own 
friends with the risk of seeing one's self in the future 
greatly embarrassed by relations lightly formed. It will be 
said that it is the same with many other schools; that is 
true, but to a less degree. All classes of society are repre- 
sented at the Conservatoire ; it is not rare to see elbowing 
each other there in the same class a youth who has made 
serious struggles and who is already a bachelor, or a Doc- 
tor of Laws and the most ignorant of illiterates ; the son 
of a millionaire and the son of a small merchant, of the 
proletariat ; daughters of savants, pastors, eminent artists 
and men of letters together with those whose parents exer- 
cise the most modest professions. This arises from the 
special artistic teaching being higher and more complete 
than anywhere else ; the most fortunate, those who could 
easily spend money on their studies, knock at its door, and 
it should be a matter of pride to belong to its school which, 
even if it does not realize the tvpe of absolute perfection, 
which is not of this world, indisputably holds its place at 



CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIOUE 333 

the head of all establishments, not French alone but Eu- 
ropean, in which music and theatrical art are taught. 

From the great diversity of character and nature presented 
by the pupils, it results that the Conservatoire is a small 
world complete in itself, a microcosm, and with a slight 
spirit of observation as well as by the studies for which 
classes are provided, one may there pass through the ap- 
prenticeship of life, with its struggles, its jealousies, its 
rancours, and its mean or terrible sides as well as the friend- 
ships and devotions that form its consolation. 



BIBLIOTHEQUE NATION ALE 

CHARLES DICKENS, JR. 

THE Bibliotheque Nationale, in Paris, was first be- 
gun by Charles V. of France, who shut up his 
nine hundred and ten volumes in the Tower of 
the Louvre. The books had been counted in 1373. Fifty 
years afterwards they were all sold to the Duke of Bedford 
for ;^i,220 sterling. Another library was started, and in 
the middle of the Fifteenth Century Louis XL began to take 
some trouble about his books. The collection was increased 
by purchases made of the Dukes of Burgundy, and by the 
pillage of the libraries of Naples and of Pavia. Louis XIL, 
about the year 1500, caused all the books to be transported 
to Blois, where the Dukes of Orleans had a library of their 
own. Francois L afterward sent them all to Fontainebleau. 
There were then one hundred and nine printed volumes and 
one thousand seven hundred and eighty-one manuscripts. 
In 1595 the collection was retransported to Paris; and even 
when in Paris the books made several journeys. In 1721 
they were placed in the Hotel Mazarin, which stood on the 
site of the present library in the Rue de Richelieu. The 
library was first opened to the public in 1737; the Bibli- 
otheque Mazarine had become public a century earlier. 
During the reign of Louis XIII. the Bibliotheque du Roi 
contained 16,750 volumes. By means of purchases and 

334 



BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE 335 

good care, in the year 1684 there were 40,000 printed vol- 
umes and 10,900 manuscripts. The Eighteenth Century 
was everywhere one of intellectual development, and before 
the Revolution broke out it was estimated that there were 
in the library 150,000 volumes. The French authorities 
say that they have now under their charge 2,000,000 vol- 
umes. Of these there are 440,000 volumes exclusively 
upon French history. It is also estimated that there are 
more than 120,000 manuscripts, 2,500,000 prints, engrav- 
ings, and charts, and that there are more than 120,000 
medals. 

This library at different periods has been called by differ- 
ent names, depending upon the title of the head of the 
government in the country. The appellation has some- 
times been Bibliotheque du Roi, or Bibliotheque Royale ; 
again it has been Bibliotheque Imperiale ; now it is Bibli- 
otheque Nationale. In the last century there was for a 
short time an idea to call it Bibliotheque de France, but 
that title was never officially recognized. 



BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 

FROM the Madeleine we were carried to the Biblio- 
theque du Roi, where it was a show-dav, and 
where we saw long tables, with gentlemen reading 
at them. Some very fine prints in the little print room, if 
one had but the time to examine them, and some extraor- 
dinary beautiful knickknacks in the shape of cameos, gems, 
and medals. There was Clovis's armchair, and one of the 
chessmen sent by Haroun Alraschid to Charlemagne ! 
What a relic ! It is about the size of half a tea-caddy — a 
royal chessman truly, think of Charlemagne solemnly lifting 
it and crying " Check ! " to Orlando ! — think of the palace 
of pictures — Zobeide has just been making a sherbert — 
Haroun and the Grand Vizier are at tables there by the 
fountain — the Commander of the Faithful looks thought- 
ful, and shakes his mighty beard — GiafFour looks pleased, 
although he is losing. " Your Majesty always wins," says 
he, as he allows his last piece to be taken. And lo ! yonder 
comes Mesnour, chief of the eunuchs ; he has a bundle 
under his arm. " Sire," pipes he in a cracked voice, " it 
is sunset ; here are the disguises ; your Majesty is to go to 
the ropemaker's to-night. If Sindbad should call, I will 
get him a jar of wine, and place him in the pavilion yonder 
by the Tigris." 

336 



BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE 337 

Of the rest of the collection it is best to say nothing : 
there is a most beautiful, tender, innocent-looking head of 
young — Nero ! — a pretty parcel of trinkets that belonged to 
Louis XV. 's Sultanas (they may have been wicked, but they 
were mighty agreeable, surely) — a picture of Louis Quatorze, 
all wig and red-heeled pumps ; another of Louis XVIIL, 
who, in the midst of his fat, looks like a gentleman and a 
man of sense, and that odious, inevitable, sickening, smirk- 
ing countenance of Louis— Philippe, which stares at you 
wherever you turn. 



LES TUILERIES 

IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND 

WHEN, after having contemplated the Arc de Tri- 
omphe, illuminated by the setting sun as by 
the flames of an apotheosis, one casts a glance 
at that magnificent avenue of the Champs-Elysees, which 
seems made for ovations, one feels oneself the child of a 
great city, of the capital of capitals. Pursuing one's way, 
one looks with pride to the right in the distance on the dome 
of the Invalides, close by the Palais de I'lndustrie, the asylum 
of pacific victories, the rendezvous of all the nations But, 
on arriving at the square that, by an ironical antiphrase, is 
called the Place de la Concorde, one is seized with a sen- 
timent of sadness. Notwithstanding its splendours, its 
obelisk, its fountains, its double palace with majestic arcades, 
its rostral columns, and its vast perspectives, this gigantic 
place is somewhat lugubrious. Livid and bleeding shadows 
appear here, and history evokes its most tragic memories. 
Where now rises the obelisk of Luxor, formerly stood in 
turn the equestrian statue of Louis XV., and the Statue of 
Libertv, seated and wearing the Phrygian cap. Near the 
fountains, for two years uninterruptedly, stood the hideous 
guillotine that severed more than fifteen hundred heads on 
that spot. 

The victims and the executioners were executed there. 

338 



LES TUILERIES 339 

After Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, 
the Girondins, Charlotte Corday, and Madame Roland, 
came the turn of Danton, Hebert, and Robespierre. While 
gazing upon that accursed spot, I fancy I hear the roll of 
the drum drowning the voice of Louis XVL, the son of 
Saint-Louis, at the moment when he desired to address the 
people before ascending to heaven. I think I see Marie 
Antoinette casting a last glance on the Tuileries, her first 
prison, before yielding up her beautiful soul to God. Ah ! 
This square is certainly not the Place de la Concorde ; its 
real name should be Place du Crime. Where the waters 
of the two fountains are spouting, even if all the streams, 
all the rivers and all the waves of the ocean were to flow, 
they would not suffice to efface the stains of blood printed 
on those stones which, like Lady Macbeth, France would 
never succeed in washing away. 

I enter the garden of the Tuileries through the grille sur- 
mounted by stone celebrities. I see basins, ancient trees 
and statues. Where does this beautiful alley which is a 
kind of continuation of the avenue of the Champs-Elysees 
and the Place de la Concorde, lead ? To ruins and what 
ruins ! What ? These triumphal ways lead up to such a 
spectacle ; is this the last word of all that train of power 
and glory ! I cannot believe my eyes ; I halt in surprise 
and indignation. The barbarity of modern vandals has 
dared to imprint such a stigma upon the brow of the great 
capital ! This is what the demagogic Erostrates have in- 
vented ! This is how they respect the glories of France ! 



340 PARIS 

This is what they have made of that illustrious palace that 
found no protection by the shadow either of Louis XIV., 
or of Napoleon, that palace which was also the scene of the 
exploits of the Convention, in which the Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety sat, and in which were heard the voices of Marat, 
Danton and Robespierre ! I cannot familiarize myself 
with these shameful and deplorable ruins ! I see the terrible 
trace of the vengeance of God in these calcined stones and I 
know not what biblical anathemas resound among this debris. 
Did not Chateaubriand have a sort of presentiment of the 
fate of the Tuilerics when he wrote in his Genie du Chris- 
tianisme : "There are two kinds of ruins: the one, the 
work of time, the other, of men. There is nothing dis- 
agreeable in the former, because nature works with the 
years. If they produce rubbish, she sows it with flowers ; 
if they open a tomb, she places a dove's nest in it. Cease- 
lessly occupied in reproducing, she surrounds death with the 
sweetest illusions of life. The second kind are devastations 
rather than ruins ; they offer only the image of nothingness 
without a reparative power. The work of misfortune and 
not of the years, they resemble white hairs on the head of 
youth. The destructions of man, moreover, are more 
violent and complete than those of the ages. The latter 
undermine ; the former overthrow. When, for causes un- 
known to us, God desires to hasten the ruins of the world. 
He orders Time to lend man his sickle, and with terror Time 
sees us ravage in the twinkling of an eye what it has taken 
him centuries to destroy." 



LES TUILERIES 341 

And this is what remains of that palace which was the 
symbol of power, the sanctuary of sovereignty, the centre 
and the very heart of the great nation, and which, more- 
over, so finely held its place in this magnificent quadrilat- 
eral; the Arc de Triomphe, the Madeleine, the Corps 
Legislatif, and the Tuileries, — glory, religion, law, and 
authority ! Here is that palace of great hopes and great 
catastrophes in which were born the king of Rome, the 
Duke of Bordeaux, the Comte de Paris and the Prince 
Imperial ; that legendary palace, the objective of so many 
ambitions and so many regrets, which amid their cruel de- 
ceptions seemed to be constantly before the eyes of Napoleon 
at Saint Helena, Charles X. at Holyrood, Louis-Philippe at 
Claremont, and Napoleon HI. at Chislehurst ! What was 
the end of this grandiose palace ? Alas ! Its last festival 
was a derisive concert given by the Commune. 

There where incense had smoked, the odious oil of 
petroleum trickled. Moscow was burned by patriotism. 
Paris was burned by the crime of Ihe-patrie. What is in 
ruins before our eyes is not only the Tuileries, it is patriot- 
ism, it is honour; that is what has been sacked and given 
to the flames; that is what mad iconoclasts have de- 
stroyed ! 

We never make use of the experiences of others. The 
kings, the emperors, and the chiefs of the republic said and 
believed that the kingdom, the empire, and their public would 
not perish. The republicans of 1792 had the following 
inscription placed upon the Tuileries : " Royalty is abolished 



342 PARIS 

in France, it will never revive." Each of the three dy- 
nasties in turn believed itself indestructible, and in its 
simplicity boasted of having forever brought the era of revo- 
lution to a close. 

Under the Second Empire, the Tuileries arrived at the 
height of its splendour. Joined to the Louvre it formed the 
most enormous and majestic edifice in the universe. Gazing 
at its debris^ I called to mind the evenings of the great 
festivals, the staircase with one of the cent-gardes on each 
side of every step, the brilliancy of the lights, the perfume of 
the flowers, the joyous sounds of the orchestras, the Galerie 
de la Paix, filled with brilliant uniforms and elegant toilettes; 
and then, in the Salle des Marechaux, the throng awaiting 
the arrival of the sovereign and his train. I hear the voice 
of the usher crying : " The emperor ! " and the musicians 
playing " Partant pour la Syrie" I see the empress in her 
splendid beauty covered with the crown diamonds. I see 
the greatest personages, the ministers, the marshals, the 
ambassadors, and often even the foreign princes soliciting 
by their humble and respectful attitude a word, or a glance, 
from him who was then regarded as the arbiter of Europe. 
Then the vision fades, the enchantment vanishes, and I see 
nothing but fragments of wall stained by petroleum and fire. 

The two projecting wings that adjoined the pavilions of 
Marsan and Flore, built by Jean Bullant, have been en- 
tirely razed since the fire, because it was believed that their 
ruins were in danger of falling. Nothing remains on the 
ground they occupied. Etiam periere ruina. But the 



LES TUILERIES 343 

ruins of the five central buildings are still standing. They 
consist of the Pavilion de I'Horloge, the two bodies of the 
building to the right and left, and the two jutting pavilions, 
the work of Jean Bullant, that are continued to either side 
and that are known as the Pavilion de Medicis. 

These five bodies of buildings of which the ruins are 
composed are precisely the ones that a celebrated arche- 
ologist, M. Vitet, with great insistence demanded should be 
preserved five years before the fire. 

The Chateau des Tuileries is one of the finest jewels of 
French architecture, and one of the purest masterpieces of 
the Renaissance. Look at it in its present misery, fallen in 
and blackened within by the odious petroleum. How ma- 
jestically it still extends the harmonious lines of its gran- 
diose facade to the sunlight ! Admire all those charming 
details that even to-day beautify the edifice without injuring 
its simplicity. Look at those capitals, those columns and 
those fragments of elegant sculpture that have almost been 
respected by the flames. Does it not seem that they should 
move the artist to save them from complete destruction ? 
The roofs, the vaults and the floors have fallen in as well 
as the majority of the partition-walls. But the exterior 
walls with the columns that ornament them are still standing. 
Their restoration would be easy. 

How beautiful must this legendary palace have been 
when even its ruins have preserved so grand and imposing 
an aspect ! Ah ! how majestic they are at night, when a 
sense of mystery and fantasy envelops them) when the 



344 PARIS 

moon illumines them with hct white radiance ; when the 
ray of some star trembles through the joints of the stone- 
work as through the interstices of the bones of the skele- 
ton ! The neighbouring clocks strike; I look at the empty 
frame in the central pavilion in which was the clock which 
was stopped by the action of the fire at nine o'clock in the 
evening on May 23, 187 1. I fancy I see a crowd of 
phantoms peopling the solitude with the generations that 
have come to life. 

How thrilling is this evocation of the past ! I see 
Catherine de Mcdicis pale at the predictions of the astrolo- 
gers ; the dazzling queen Margot, exciting the enthusiasm 
of the Polish ambassadors ; Henri IH., fleeing by the 
garden on the day of the barricades; Louis XIV., presiding 
at the luxurious carouse covered with the crown diamonds 
like a Roman emperor ; Louis XV., as a child walking 
about under the trees with his little Spanish Jiancee. Here, 
in the Salle des Machines, is the Theatre Fran^ais, as it 
was represented by the pencil of Moreau le Jeune. I am 
present at the first performance of the Barber of Seville and 
at the apotheosis of the living Voltaire. Then, with Louis 
XVI. and Marie Antoinette, the palace rises before me like 
the vestibule to the scaffold. Then it becomes the seat of 
the Convention. I see the insurgent hordes with their 
pikes and red caps, and the Furies of the guillotine, and 
Robespierre livid and with a broken jaw. Then it is the 
Man of Destiny who appears. It is the Consular guard. 
It is the review of the soldiers of Egypt and Italy. It is 



LES TUILERIES 345 

Pope Pius VIII. It is the coronation procession. The 
kind Josephine saddens me ; I suiFer with her grief at the 
moment of the divorce. And now here is Marie Louise. 
There is the cradle of the king of Rome. After unheard 
of splendours, comes the awful fall and the return of Louis 
XVIII. ; the Duchesse d'Angouleme ; the orphan of the 
Temple, who fainted at the moment when women, robed 
in white and bearing lilies, said to her : " Daughter of 
Louis XVI. bless us ! " Less than a year afterward, it is 
Napoleon whom I again see borne, as on a triumphal 
shield, on the arms of his enthusiastic grenadiers. Then it 
is the Bourbons whom I see for the second time. I see the 
Tuileries covered with black cloth. It is Louis XVIII. , 
the only sovereign of France since Louis XV. who has 
died upon the throne. Then, in 1830, I see the red-coated 
Swiss slain as on the Tenth of August, and the wave of the 
populace invading the palace. I perceive Louis-Philippe 
reigning, ceaselessly menaced by assassins; the Duke of 
Orleans, full of youth and hope, leaving the Tuileries to 
fall on the road of Revolt ; the tragic scenes of the Revol- 
ution of February, the sorrowful departure of the old king 
into exile ; then the pomps of the Second Empire, Napo- 
leon III., all-powerful, the empress radiant with beauty.^ 
the cradle of the Prince Imperial saluted by the same accla- 
mations as those of the King of Rome, the Duke of Bor- 
deaux and the Comte de Paris : the throng of crowned heads, 
princes and princesses who have come to the Tuileries for 
the universal Exposition of 1867; and the sad return of 



346 PARTS 

human affairs, the Fourth of September, the Commune, and 
the modern Erostrates who gave the last entertainment at 
the Tuileries before burning it ; and from all these varied 
throngs arises a great clamour. Sometimes I hear the 
cheers of the people and the army saluting the sovereign, 
sometimes the obsequious voices of the courtiers who out 
of respect speak in low tones in the palace, as in a church ; 
and sometimes the furious cries of invaders letting them- 
selves loose like a tempest. At length, all these evocations 
disappear, all these shadows vanish, and all this tumult and 
these echoes are hushed. It is night, it is silence, and I 
remember, I meditate, and I repeat Massillon's words over 
the coffin of Louis XIV. : " God alone is great ! " 



RUE DE RIVOLI 

MAX DE REVEL 

THE Rue de Rivoli is one of the newest streets of 
Paris ; opened at the will of the emperor, its 
name is a splendid memorial of glory, for it re- 
calls a victory won on the 14th of January, 1797. It is a 
page torn from that grand century, that century, if any, of 
victorious memory. But, owing to its construction, it is 
to-day an inexcusable proof of that bad taste that presided 
over the architecture of the empire. That colonnade, 
uniformly square to the eye, belongs to no order and to no 
style ; it is simply a very cold, very heavy, and very formal 
portico, a mass of stones and slates, an exhibition of windows 
which might well pass for hothouses with exterior balconies. 
The Restoration, prevented from going to sleep by the 
laurels gained by the Empire, made an effort to change the 
name of the Rue de Rivoli for the benefit of the Due de 
Bordeaux ; a bust was placed at the two extremities of the 
street with this inscription : Rue du Due de Bordeaux. On 
the next day the writing and transparency had disappeared 
beneath an avalanche of stones ; the Rue de Rivoli kept its 
glorious name, and the dedication that they attempted to 
introduce returned, some time afterward, to take possession 
of a little street which soon changed its noble title for a 
simple date : the 29 Juillet. 

347 



348 PARIS 

Separated from the gardens of the Tuileries by a high 
wall, the ground that really forms the Rue de Rivoli was 
cut into three parts : the Jssomption^ a convent inhabited 
by nuns ; the Couvent des Feuillants ; and the Couvent des 
Capucins. These three monasteries were enclosed between 
the Rue Saint-Florentin and the Rue du Dauphin ; the rest 
of the ground as far as the Rue de Rohan was occupied by 
the hospice of the ^I'tnze-Vingts^ built by Saint-Louis, on a 
piece of ground called Champourri. He had also particu- 
larly endowed this hospice, and an annual rent of thirty 
Uvres had been appropriated to pay for the soup of the blind. 
In 1779, the Cardinal de Rohan, grand-almoner of France, 
transferred them to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and upon 
the very site of the hospice opened two streets, one of which 
took the name of Rohati^ and the other ^inze-Vingts, 

What do I hear, what is this tumult, what are these cries, 
these flames starting from the windows ? Men in arms 
throw themselves from the houses — it is the Rue de Rohan 
receiving its baptism of blood, as it received its baptism of 
feudality from the hands of the cardinal. Who are these 
two men with fiery eyes, bristling moustaches, and lips 
blackened with powder ? Their clothes are in disorder — 
they enter a butcher's — a yelling crowd follows in their 
tracks — it besieges the door — with loud cries it demands 
the heads of the fugitives. The door finally yields 
to their redoubled efforts. Two large beardless fellows 
come to offer their services to the sovereign people. In a 
moment the shop is visited, the most ardent searches lead 




COLOXXE VENDUME. 



RUE DE RIVOLI 349 

to no result, no discovery ; the two men have fled, and the 
crowd, inconstant and changeable in its pleasures as in its 
fury, disperses and runs, matchlock in hand, to overturn a 
throne and conquer liberty. 

We are in the month of July, 1830: these two men 
are the royal guards whom a butcher has shaved to save 
them from the fury of the people — we are in open revo- 
lution. 

But the Rue de Rohan has returned to its primitive calm, 
the pavement has resumed its place, the holes made by the 
balls have been stopped up, the revolution is over. 

The Rue du Dauphin was one of Napoleon Bonaparte's 
first stages. It was in the Rue du Dauphin that he in- 
habited a dark and mean chamber on his return from Italy ; 
it is before the Rue du Dauphin that he knocked for the 
first time at the castle-door announcing himself by the noise 
of cannon. It was from the Rue du Dauphin that he de- 
signed the new quarter of the Tuileries, and the ball shot 
from Saint-Roch traced with a single flight the Rues de 
Rivoli, de Castiglione, de Monthabor, de Mondovi and des 
Pyramides and finally stopped at the foot of the Colonne 
de la Place Vendome. 

The streets that I have just named and which are success- 
ively met belong to the domain of modern history, that is 
to say, to memory of the victories and conquests of the 
French army, the catalogue of which is found on the 
walls of the Arc de Triomphe de VEtoile. 

I cannot end this review without speaking of two res- 



350 PARIS 

taurant-keepers who made at least their own individual 
fortunes, if not the fortune of the street. 

The first is Lagacque, and the second Very, whose 
rooms were the rendezvous of the fashionable world of the 
Directoire and the empire. 

The cafe Very displayed a luxury unheard of until that 
day : people spoke of 8o,ooo frances spent in mirrors, por- 
celains, and crystal alone. It is true that Lucien Bona- 
parte often went to dine at Very's. It is even said that 
one day it was his fancy to pay a bill of 75,000 francs ; 
the habitues of the time pretended that that was nothing 
but a loan made to the lady at the desk ; others have 
maintained that it was a purely gratuitous gift ; what is 
certain is that the cajl^ magnificently restored, made a 
rapid fortune. The Rue de Rivoli is one of the finest 
streets of Paris as we come from the barrier of L'Etoilei 
that is the best praise that we can give it. 



THE STREET 

THEODORE DE BANFILLE 

IN my belief the caliph Haroun al Raschid found the 
best means of being a sovereign well-informed on 
all matters and that was to walk the streets during 
the night. An excellent system at Bagdad, and much 
more excellent at Paris, where the streets are endowed with 
supernatural life ! They possess life, thought, and soul, 
and, if one knows how to listen to them, they speak to 
one. In the commercial quarters one still hears vaguely, 
like an echo, the noise of anvils and machinery, the vibra- 
tion of matter at work ; while around the Odeon float in the 
air, as if subtilized, philosophical ideas, transcendent calcu- 
lations and Homeric verses. In Paris the skies, clouds, 
and swarming stars associate themselves with the aspects 
of the city in the manner of stones, and these stones them- 
selves are moulded and modelled by all the active and fruit- 
ful thought that has moved about them during the day. 

He who, at night, walks about the silent and almost 
empty Paris knows more about the movements of souls 
and the reality of things than if he had listened to many 
conversations and turned over a great heap of documents ; 
for at that hour ideas are imbibed and inhaled in the still 
vibrating atmosphere. Yes, it is good, it is wholesome, 
and it is profitable to wander there during the night ; but 

351 



352 PARIS 

neither is it bad to walk about during the day and mix 
with the people, with the throng, with the vast human 
wave, which, like that of the sea, tells its secret without 
speaking and only by its agitation and melodious murmur. 
If our ministers are never kept informed of anything, it is 
because they do not see the street, nor the pavements, but 
live imprisoned in interiors decorated in the worst style of 
the empire. 

To-day the governments have their feet stuck down to 
their carpets with wax ; but this hourgeoise and domestic 
mode is relatively recent. King Louis-Philippe, whose 
classically curled forelock casts a comic shadow over his- 
tory, always carried with him an umbrella that has become 
legendary; this certainly proves that he did not fear to 
walk abroad, for doubtless he did not yoke himself to this 
scarcely heroic though useful article to stroll through the 
apartments of the Tuileries. His young and charming son, 
the Due d'Orleans did not disdain to climb stairs, to 
enter the rooms of writers and the studios of artists, which 
counted for much in the great movement of 1830, for it 
was an enormous encouragement to all those who lived 
by thought to know that their works were known and un- 
derstood in the palace where the destinies of France were 
shaped. Before these, an essentially ambulatory prince, 
Napoleon I., wrapped in his big overcoat, liked to chat with 
the merchants in their shops, to stroll with the crowd, to 
pass along with the others and to laugh at liberty at the fibs 
that his minister of police told him. He was no stranger to 



THE STREET 353 

the street because he had known it of old, and in the only 
way in which one can know it well, that is to say by being 
poor. He had wandered about without a sou^ and not hav- 
ing it, he had grown so accustomed not to put any money 
in his pockets that later when he had plenty, being the 
master of the world, he still continued not to put it in 
his pockets, which sometimes exposed him to the strangest 
adventures. But in that way, at least he could contem- 
plate Truth entirely naked and not muffled in a thousand 
tinsel lies as she was exhibited at the Tuileries. 

Ah ! if the artist and the poet want to know the exact 
value of their glory they have only to go outside and look 
at their inventions in full sunlight, and they will see im- 
mediately whether they have modelled living figures or 
pale phantoms. The women, who, in every respect, have 
infinitely more good sense than we, never content them- 
selves with the shadows, and want their prey all palpitating 
and bleeding, know very well where the applause that 
counts and real adoration are to be found. If they want 
to know the extent of their beauty and power, they trust 
neither the interested falsehoods of their friends, nor the 
envenomed politeness of the salons ; but they believe in 
the effect that they produce in the street with their beauti- 
ful toilettes, they are reassured by the admiration that is 
involuntarily expressed with tremendous oaths; and from 
the duchess who goes to Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, with 
her chaste and pious gait, to the brazen and melancholy 
prowler of the outer boulevard, ail the women are satisfied 



354 PARIS 

if they please the incorruptible street public, the only one 
that does not take will-o'-the-wisps for lanterns, nor buy a 
pig in a poke. 

Baron Haussmann, like a modern Hercules, knew how 
to clean the sewers and make rivers flow through foul 
stables. He has given us air and light ; he created capital 
by making land of value that was disdained till that time, 
and in sum, he was endowed with a certain genius for 
building ; but his mind was lacking in one thing, he could 
never understand the soul of Paris. When his mad and 
drunken pick overthrew the Boulevard du Temple, he 
thought he had destroyed nothing but theatres ; but his 
crime was much graver, he had sterilized the dramatic 
genius of France for a long time. No pieces without 
actors, this is an elementary axiom; now, why were there 
so many great comedians at that day and why are there 
fewer to-day ? Remember that open space on the boule- 
vard glittering with lights, swarming, streaming and 
crowded with busy shops, where an infinitely diversified 
Parisian crowd, elite and popular at the same time, but 
ardently attached to the theatre, ceaselessly lounged and 
, moved about ! The actors passed along there on their way 
to their art, their duties and their triumph ; they passed by, 
no longer travestied and painted, dressed up in an artificial 
character, but having become themselves again under their 
own natural figure, among the people who loved them, 
knew them and lived with them inside and outside the 
theatre. To pass through this crowd was the redoubtable 



THE STREET 355 

and decisive proof; for, if the artist had acted well on the 
previous and other evenings, he was saluted by long friendly 
looks; but if, on the contrary, he had been lacking in 
sincerity, if he had abandoned himself to conventionality 
and easy effects, he was met by that gloomy indifference 
at which heroes and kings themselves are inconsolable. 
Ah ! at such a time what cared a Deburau, a Frederick, 
or a Dorval for the jealousy of his rivals, the ill-humour 
of the papers, or the strained admiration of fashionable 
people when the Parisian cast a glance at him that said — 
*' I am pleased with you ! " All this world, actors and 
throng, were thick as thieves and lived in a true com- 
munion. To-day they are strangers to one another, they 
no longer know one another, and the Muse also does not 
know them, because they are no longer gathered together 
and united in ideas in common for love of her. 

The Street knows everything, and foresees everything, 
and without her, nobody knows anything. If, notwith- 
standing many excellent and superior masterpieces, modern 
comedy has not succeeded in painting modern life, it is be- 
cause, by a false idea of dignity, by prudery to speak plainly, 
she has imprisoned herself in the salons and the common 
people are unknown to her. Moliere's comedy, like Shakes- 
peare's and Aristophanes', knows the streets and yields 
herself to the kiss of the sunlight. Ours, muffled up, up- 
holstered and barricaded between folding-screens, does not 
know whether it is winter or summer, day or night, nor 
whether the place in which she dwells is a populated city or 



35^ PARIS 

a desert. She is c\ cii absolutely ignorant whether there has 
been a revolution or if the form of government has 
changed. 

This is like our deputies, moreover. For shut up in 
what, by blameworthy ignorance of the French language, 
they persist in calling an cnceinti., one might burn Paris and 
scatter its ashes to the four winds of heaven without their 
knowing anything about it. 

Ah ! the meanest Gavroche, an habitue of the pavement 
and companion of the wandering sparrows, is a historian 
and a politician far more than they. By the attitude and 
by the greater or less ardour of the enthusiasts who tear up 
the first paving-stone, he knows immediately what is com- 
ing and whether it is a matter of an affray, a riot or a revo- 
lution. He is also a very good art critic j for him, the 
goddess of the Rude, flying, cuirassed with scales, shouting 
her refrain through the affrighted skies, is the real Marseil- 
laise^ whilst certain ladies in marble, crowned with ears of 
corn or stars, represent to him not the Republic but merely 
astronomy or agriculture. 

At the new Hotel de Ville, standing in their niches, the 
great Parisians are in full view ; so that for them the judg- 
ment of posterity has been made. There are certain among 
them who are at home there and natural, and others who 
will be stupefied and eternally in a strange land. The peo- 
ple adopt those who in their souls were sincerely of the 
people ; those, on the contrary, who lied, courted popularity, 
and proffered vain words will always look as if they are 



THE STREET 357 

wondering where they have left their hats and are only 
on a visit. The pavement does not know them, has not 
wanted to learn their names and disowns them. 

When you have shut yourself up in the enceinte^ you 
naively imagine that the questions of ministers, men and 
cabinets are real questions, and that the breast of commissions 
is a real breast capable of suckling some one or nourishing 
something ; go down into the street and without any one 
having to teach you the lesson, you will immediately see 
that there are many other fish to fry. You will see all 
those people, men, women, old men, and children going to 
their task, courageous and sad because they are anxious to 
work with all their strength, but notwithstanding their 
courage they see before them the ever-threatening spectre 
of hunger. You will see, alas, vice devouring such youth- 
ful prey that its cannibal feast makes the stones weep. I 
am quite aware that these pale young girls might go and 
ask for work at the Bon Marche, or the shops of the 
Louvre ; but perhaps they would be told that the places 
were already filled. 

In any case, go down into the street and walk about and 
it will be time well spent. Long ago an author who trem- 
bled with fear on his way to the Opera-Comique, where a 
piece of his was to be played, and who had the dramatic 
author's colic, was radically cured of his ill on crossing the 
Place des Victoires, where men with bloody arms were car- 
rying the Princesse de Lamballe's head on the end of a 
pike. You will not see such spectacles to-day, but you will 



358 PARIS 

come across others that will have their value. You, sir, 
infatuated with your novel that seems to you to be superior 
to Iliad, or with your sonnet that you prefer to those of 
Ronsard, on noticing that there are many more mouths 
than loaves and many more feet than shoes, you will have 
food for reflection. You will also realize that in the open 
air certain great men are no longer great, just as certain 
beautiful women are no longer at all beautiful, and you will 
perceive that in the salons they make you swallow anything 
they like, but that the street is not so silly. 



PLACE DE LA CONCORDE 

RICHARD WHIT KING 

THE Place de la Concorde is one of the most beau- 
tiful and effective in Paris, both for the views it 
commands — the Church of the Madeleine, the 
Arc de I'Etoile, the Chamber of Deputies, the Garden of 
the Tuileries, etc., etc. — and for its ample size and embel- 
lishments. Of the two large buildings to the north facing 
the Chamber of Deputies, the one to the right, looking 
toward the Madeleine, is the ministry of marine, that to 
the left (in part) a clubhouse, and for the rest a private 
residence. The Place has undergone many transformations, 
but it was laid out as it stands now under Napoleon III. 
It was the scene of the awful accident at the marriage re- 
joicings of Louis XVI., when a terrified rush of an excited 
crowd resulted in as much slaughter as a great battle, killing 
twelve hundred outright and wounding twice as many more. 
Later on, the guillotine of the Revolution occupied this 
spot and here perished Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, 
Charlotte Corday, the Girondins, Philippe-Egalite, Danton, 
Camille Desmoulins, Robespierre, Saint Just, and nearly three 
thousand others, all in about two years. In 1814 Prussian 
and Russian troops were bivouacked in the Place, in 18 15 
English troops, and in 187 1 Prussian troops again. There 
was desperate fighting here during the Commune, and the 

359 



360 PARIS 

barricade of the Rue Royale, the street leading to the Made- 
leine, was one of the most formidable in Paris. The beau- 
tiful obelisk of Luxor in the centre was presented to Louis- 
Philippe by Mehemet Ali, and the French engineers were 
not a little proud of their success in transporting it to France 
and setting it upon its pedestal. Intaglios on the granite 
base illustrate the method of transport and removal, and this 
is further exemplified by detailed models in one of the 
museums. The monolith belongs to the epoch of Rameses 
II, (Sesostris the Great), in the Fourteenth Century b. c, and 
it records his achievements as Lord of the Earth and Anni- 
hilator of the Enemy. . . . The eight-seated figures 
round the Place are, or were when they were done, repre- 
sentative of the eight chief towns of France — Lille, Stras- 
bourg, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rouen, Brest, Marseilles, and 
Lyons. Strasbourg (in the northeast corner near the Tuil- 
eries), it will be observed, wears perpetual mourning of 
funeral wreaths on account of her separation from the 
mother country. The space in front of this statue is often 
the scene of patriotic demonstrations. 



- l\k- \C - ^- 7; 



/7 \7 





^vTVr'vrVJ''^ 



PLACE DE LA CONCORDE 

tMophile gautier 

IN crossing the Place de la Concorde do not neglect to 
throw a glance at the fountain. 
You will see between other figures more or less 
allegorical and mythological, the Triton and Tritonne by 
Antonin Moine. 

It is indeed the true Triton of the opera as Boucher and 
Vanloo understood it; nothing more undulous, more sug- 
gestive of the sea, more glaucous and more squamous 
could be imagined. 

The Nereid is wreathed with scallops, corals, and sea- 
weed in infinite taste ; her bracelets and necklaces of shell- 
work give her a great richness of ornamentation, which is 
perfectly harmonious with a decorative figure. The other 
personages, seated in a circle under the basin of the foun- 
tain, like the old clothes-dealers of the market-place under 
their umbrella of red linen are not at all elegant, and by 
their rigidity and awkwardness contrast with the disinvol- 
ture and the vivacity of Antonin Moine's statues. 

The water is thrown from the mouth of fishes, dolphins, 
and other designs from the ocean, conveniently pierced 
with holes for this purpose. 

When the figures of the piedouche can only be seen 

361 



362 PARIS 

through the crystal fringe and the shower of pearls which 
fall from the upper basin, the general aspect does not lack 
a certain tufted and rich effect. 

We have waited for water-works with impatience, for 
what above all else characterizes monuments of this species 
is the complete absence of what our fathers called the humid 
element ; in a fountain there is always bronze, iron, lead, 
cement, and cut stone ; there is everything except water. 

In Paris, the use of the fountain is a true sinecure ; how- 
ever, this is so near the river that it would take only a very 
ill will to make it dry ; she will have much to do even with 
the aid of her sisters to refresh the disheartening aridity of 
this Sahara of dust and melted bitumen where the prome- 
naders get caught and stuck by the feet like flies upon raisin'e 
(preserve of grapes and pears). 



THE tLYStE 

ARSkNE HOUSSATE 

WE are in 1728, five years after the death of the 
Regent. A prince of the house of Bouillon, 
the Comte d'Evreux, has ordered the archi- 
tect, Mollet, to build him a palace worthy of a Highness, a 
miniature Versailles on the Faubourg Saint-Honore. 

Seventeen hundred and twenty-eight ! O flourishing 
years of royalty ! Louis XV. is reigning. Cardinal Fleury 
is governing; all around, France is amusing herself. At 
the Comte d'Evreux's, as at so many other lodges haunted 
by the demigods of the court, wine flows, women are beau- 
tiful, and philosophy is smiling ! Lagrange-Chancel would 
grow indignant on watching all these stepsons, titled cour- 
tiers of Trimalcion, who perhaps the next night will sneak 
into Locusta's ; on listening to all these railing madmen 
who hum such biting couplets against the patriarchs of 
Genesis and the apostles of the New Testament ! As for 
us, let us laugh ! Madame de Tencin also, purple with 
erudition and the wine of Romance, has sworn that in less 
than a month she will submit to the company a methodical 
plan of " Greek and Roman recreations," in which the 
actors will be costumed according to the nature and spirit 
of their parts ; Jean Baptiste Vanloo is in ecstasy over all 

these couples whom he will reproduce with the sentiment 

363 



364 PARIS 

of an amorous page; and, amid clinking bott!es and ex- 
changed kisses, if a stoic had the courage to scowl with his 
morose brow, he would hear issuing from the walls and 
ceilings like an echo of eternal wisdom these subtle words 
by an ambassador who had been admitted to an entertain- 
ment of Leo X. : " Buona Persona^ ma vuole viveve ! " 
(Good persons, but who want to live !) 

They want to live, all these guests of a soiree that is 
renewed every evening in the palace of the Comte d' 
Evreux, and they would want to live still more when the 
Comte d'£vreux is no longer master in that house ! For 
the new owner of Mollet's masterpiece is not made to let 
this temple of gay knowledge and gay adventure be idle. 
After the Comte d'Evreux the house belongs by purchase 
to Jeanne Poisson, Madame de Lenormand I'Etioles, to 
her who by the effort of her will and the magic of her 
sweet face has become, by increase. Marquise de Pompa- 
dour, President of Paphos and Archduchess of Cythera. 
On the eve of Fontenoy, in spite of Madame de Prie, 
Madame Vintimille, and Madame de Mailly, when the 
people, who nevertheless knew the good Marie Leczinska, 
still called Louis XV. their Well-Beloved King, Madame 
de Pompadour installed herself, like an encyclopaedist 
Astrsa, in this Forez des Champs Elysees, and she abol- 
ished the enclosures and extended the gardens at pleasure ! 
In fact, deepen yourselves, ye light shadows under which 
so many Daphnes and Amaranthes have already sported ! 
Like that odorous cloud of Homeric Ida, screen those 



THE ELYSEE 365 

scenes of confused disorder in which the king deceives the 
queen and Jeanne Poisson deceives the king ! If it may 
be, let us ignore forever those silvery nights when the lady 
is going to yield herself a willing captive to the gallant 
speeches of that devil of a fellow, Gentil-Bernard, fine, 
false, and courteous, like a hrelan of Dauphinois seeking 
fortune ! Let us not see, like an abbe de Choisy and an 
abbe de Gondi rolled into one, the abbe de Bernis lying in 
wait for his cardinalate in the semi-royal oratory and paying 
the earnest money of a European war with a song ! Pass 
on quickly, Voltaire, ironical flatterer of all these im- 
provised majesties whom, you well divine. King Voltaire 
must survive ! Pass on, for this time your lips, usually 
better inspired, would only whistle an impertinent distich 
upon Pompadour-Pompadour ette ! Pass on quickly, Mar- 
montel ; your new Conte moral is too immoral for our cir- 
cles of the present day who no longer value morality ! 
Pass on quickly, petulant Cresset, and you, Eschyle-Crebil- 
lon, and you also, Salluste-Duclos ! Pass, fleeting stars 
that from all Europe come almost all together to shine 
upon this magnetic roof! Pass, Hume, Galliani, and the 
others ! Elsewhere I would willingly salute you ; else- 
where it would please me to recognize what generous at- 
traction draws you to Paris, as Dante, Tasso, Lope de Vega 
were drawn before you, and Shakespeare also, I hope ! But 
in these verdurous surroundings, so near that edifice cer- 
tainly dedicated to mysterious Graces, even when to your 
select troop is added one of the familiar oracles of the free 



366 PARIS 

school, M. de Montesquieu celebrating vespers in the 
church of Guide, instead of you in this garden I should 
like to meet some gallant of twenty years fastening his 
silken ladder to the gratings, and with his personal poetry 
creating a Beatrice, a Laura, or a Juliette, under this 
frivolous reign of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour, 
on the eve of the libertine reign of Madame la Comtesse 
Dubarry. 

The Marquise often came to charm away her ennui in 
this garden that she had made a park of. Here she relaxed 
after too closely working over some etching ! Here to the 
spring breezes she opened her breast, irritated under the 
double ladder of its rose ribbons, after some incendiary 
luncheon eaten, in spite of Dr. Quesnay, expressly to bal- 
ance the growing influence of Mile, de Romans and to 
participate in the tastes of the master! 

On the death of the Marquise, her mansion fell to her 
brother, M. de Marigny, of whom there is nothing to say 
except that in his capacity as superintendent of buildings 
he worked a good deal for the embellishment of the city 
and that he had the merit of remaining a very honest man ; 
being the brother of a favourite, such a short time before 
Jean Dubarry ! And then from the hands of M. de 
Marigny, the Hotel d'Evreux reverted, by a natural trans- 
mission it seems to me, to the royal domain which arranged 
a series of apartments there furnished for the ambassadors 
extraordinary to the Court of France, and which provision- 
ally lodged there the crown jewels and chattels, the monu- 



THE ELYSEE 367 

ment of the Place Louis XV. not yet being completed. 
Abode of M. de Marigny or jewel safe, the Elysee matters 
little to us ; for what decides the destiny of dwellings is 
only the imprint left upon them by memorable tenants. But 
patience ! The Hotel d'Evreux is about to resume its 
rights in our interest, and the new chapters of its history 
will naturally join these brilliant prologues that illumined 
the most brilliant years of the Eighteenth Century with a 
voluptuous glow. 

In 1773, M. de Beaujon, the Samuel Bernard of a more 
prodigal generation, the intelligent Turcaret who willingly 
entered into bonds of friendship with Lesage, bought from 
the king this magnificent inn of extra-official diplomacy 
which had become almost useless, thanks to the discredit 
into which the already moribund monarchy had fallen in the 
eyes of Europe. 

Under the protectorate of the financier, the mansion in- 
creased still more and adorned itself. The labours of 
Boullee, one of the Mansards of the day, agreeably com- 
pleted the work of Mollet, and the Praxiteles of the time 
were all occupied in peopling the groves. But why so 
many armed Cupids under the boughs ? Their arrows 
would scarcely trouble the heart of the farmer of the reve- 
nue, or of the facile beauties he harboured. If La Guimard 
and La Dervieux left the diabolical Paradise of the Rue 
Chantereine to amuse themselves in these alleys and grot- 
toes ; if by their side more than one Cydalise of high rank 
forgot all the quarterings of her nobility and of her virtue 



368 PARIS 

ill the Hotel Beaujon, it was not love that led or held them 
there. Love will never have the courage to become a 
clerk under M. Beaujon, the banker ! 

For the rest, it is not in his halls or park that Nicolas 
Croesus cared to seek that salutary dew of the heart that 
makes amends for millions; he pursued the divine illusion 
of desire further up in the faubourg that he enriched and 
created, beside that hospital that still reminds the poor of 
the name of that rich man who took the trouble to place 
Lazarus at his side. In his mansion M. de Beaujon ap- 
pears to us at a distance, not as one of those philanthropists 
who had lived for the good of all, but as one of those 
wearied ones who have lived without profit to others and to 
their own disgust ; not like a Necker more useful and less 
pedantic, but like a Pococurante, sadder even in his Paris 
than the amphitryon of Candide ever was in his Venice ! 

In 1786, a new owner and new fortunes ! The last 
Duchess of Bourbon with her princely ascendancy purified 
these walls that still reeked with the scent of vulgar amours 
and parvenue opulence. In the Hotel Beaujon she is truly 
a queen in her place. The other queen sometimes stayed 
in this Parisian Trianon, proud to govern here more by her 
white hand and her delicate wit than by the right of her 
doubly royal birth. Oh ! if a painter could only portray 
for us one o( those /etes in which the queen of France was 
merely Marie Antoinette, and Cagliostro's oracles had no 
fatality in them, nor M. de Lauzun's vows anything in- 
discreet ! Outside, the noisy gaiety of the Parisians rack- 



THE ELYSEE 369 

eting in the Place Louis XV. and at the spectacles of the 
Saint-Ovide fair prevents the Archduchess of Austria from 
recalling, like a sinister vision, the fatal firew^orks that sad- 
dened the people during the solemnities of her arrival ; in- 
side, Florian rhymes, Gretry sings, Chamfort rails, the 
Comte d'Artois smiles on everybody, the Comte de Prov- 
ence meditates a quatrain, the Comtesse Jules is in high 
good humour, Madame de Lamballe multiplies her innocent 
coquetries and the Duchess of Bourbon is enchanted at the 
enchantment of all her guests ! But painters are hardly 
willing to draw such portraits ; they tremble lest before the 
work is finished they see the spectre of the gardener Sanson 
cutting ofF the heads of so many amiable creatures who 
would still like to live, and embalming the whole bunch of 
these fair roses in the warm blood of his basket. 

The Revolution laid its hand upon the delicate sessions 
of the palace where so brilliantly blossomed the prosperity 
of the last heir but one of the Condes. . . . The 
Tuileries were disinherited of the memories that had been 
inscribed there throughout by the descendants of Henri 
IV. and the palace of Cours-la-Reine was dispossessed of 
the charming prestige in which it had been enveloped by 
that princess of an enchanted isle, Madame la Duchesse de 
Bourbon. 

Nevertheless 1793 was not a bad year for the Hotel de 
Pompadour and de Bourbon. At that day it was declared 
national and there is nothing in that to make us indignant. 
That is fate, the common shipwreck j but the day when 



370 PARIS 

the guillotine came to a halt, the day when, instead of 
Thermidorian barkings, Paris heard lispings of the gilded 
youth, the day when Therezia Cabarrus forgot her old 
character of conventional Themis and resuscitated Venus 
for the Directory and the directors, the mansion should 
have fallen into ruins and the echo of the gardens should 
have prolonged its maledictions in thunder-claps ; for, 
truly, if we pity the young captive, if Mile, de Coigny, 
condemned to the gross familiarities of Saint-Lazare, 
moves us like Polyxena or Jeanne d'Arc herself, why should 
we not also have tears for this monument of so many 
grandeurs of a whole century, which, as the century was 
ending, became a public ballroom ? There where used to sing 
so many of those birds that found good supper and good 
lodging in Madame de Pompadour's downy nest ; there 
where Voltaire Apollo imposed the tune and rhythm upon so 
many obedient lyres, we must now listen to the bow of the 
manager of a hostelry ball. In those glasses, that mirrored 
those rare persons of whom pastels after a hundred years 
still translate for us a flowering legend of elegancies and 
passions, in those glasses, the Atheniennes who beg from 
Barras dare to look at themselves. They run toward that 
garden, toward that £lysee (they called that the £lysee, a 
bacchanal in which Homer would not have dared to com- 
promise Thersites !) toward that hamlet of Chantilly (they 
evoked the images of the noble castle in which Conde 
wept, and Bossuet surpassed Demosthenes, and the abbe 
Prevost taught French to Manon, to form a cortege to 



THE ELYSEE 371 

those infamous heroines who would have refused inter- 
course with the chamber women of the great century), 
they ran, those Agaves at the Revolution that is halting, 
perorating upon Greece and representing to the utmost 
the evil days of decrepit Rome howling lechery in the 
orgies of the good goddess j they come, a worthy escort to 
those female Olympians of carnival, whose fathers have 
spoken beneath the knife and died while insulting the axe, 
the club-women of Clichy, sterile progeny of the Cazalis 
and the Sombreuils; they come upon the steps of Madame 
Tallien to dance to the honour of the victims. Entire Paris 
is at work in debauches of the kitchen and the dance : the 
Elysee is one of its favourite little houses : it is here that 
they set off the fireworks that with the most vivid gleams 
light up all those deliriums and all those abasements of the 
French conscience. Let us not linger too long over this 
picture, and in order that we may retain only an agreeable 
image of the palace that has kept the name of L' £lysee, 
let us picture to ourselves, mingling with those groups and 
conspiring the defeat of all hearts, the two new virtuosos 
of Parisian coquetry, Madame Hamelin, the Creole, and 
Madame Recamier of Lyons. They pass : one, the more 
provoking, more rapid in the play of glances and in burn- 
ing lip sallies ; the other, more gentle, more secret, more 
melodious ; they pass : in a moment both are going to 
dance that shawl dance in which they excel, and when they 
stop fatigued by the motion and still more tired by the 
plaudits than by their voluptuous undulations, they will fall 



372 PARIS 

upon those low divans in those somewhat mysterious 
boudoirs where they will repose to the music of orchestrated 
compliments by those two great flatterers, Garat who has 
just triumphed at the clavecin, and General Bonaparte who 
has just triumphed at Toulon. 

General Bonaparte ! Do not hope henceforth to escape 
this name that fills every corner of the history of Paris 
and of the world. 

In 1803, Murat buys the profanated palace. On this 
eve of the Empire, the brother-in-law of the future em- 
peror, with his somewhat gorgeous genius, arranges for him- 
self a dwelling for a prince of the blood. It is there that 
the Ajax, the Turnus of the modern epic, furbishes his 
arms, dreams of a throne and in a facile intermediary of 
happiness seeks the secret of his future exploits. About 
him Victory sounds her clarions and Love sighs his elegies. 
Blangini takes notes for a romance for Princess Borghese 
who tarried in Canova's studio, Caroline-Andromache al- 
ready esteems herself more than a queen since she reposes 
on the tenderness of her Hector, her Joachim, and the em- 
peror is pleased to steal a few hours from the universe 
to give them to these quotidian solemnities of the 
penates. 

When Murat, the soldier, had become a king, the em- 
peror who loved the £lysee appropriated it, and after 1808 
it was one of his favourite abodes. There he could con- 
verse with his confidantes and even with those audacious 
intelligences rebellious to his sceptre whom he did not 



THE ELYS^E 373 

hate as much as has been believed. There you come O 
Fontanes, Talma, Cambaceres, Reynouard, and yourself O 
Duels, gentle misanthrope ! There the infant who did not 
reign over Rome tried his first steps before his delighted 
father ! There, perhaps, the sublime partitioner divided the 
patrimony of Russia among the children who were not 
and never would be born ! There also, on that sinister 
night of June 21, 18 15, he alighted a passenger, already 
almost a fugitive, coming to announce to Paris that it was 
in vain that he had conquered at Ligny, at Charleroi, at 
Quatre-Bras, and that it would be well to interrupt the Te 
Deums and more fitting to intone a vast De Profundis on ac- 
count of Waterloo and crucified France ! There perhaps 
the overthrown giant tasted the last intoxication of his 
majesty. 

A few days afterward, the fallen abandoned the £lysee 
(and then Malmaison for Rochefort), Napoleon II. was 
placed in the care of an Austrian commissary and mean- 
while the £lysee was bannered with white and Alexander 
of Russia took up his quarters in the Palais de Bourbon, 
leaving the Rue Saint-Florentin and the Hotel de I'lnfan- 
tado in which M. Talleyrand, delighted to take one oath 
more, had offered him a costly hospitality. 

In those days Juliana de Wietinghoff, otherwise named 
Madame de Krudner was, (as who does not know ?) the 
Agnes-Egeria of Alexander, and, after having inspired him 
in the camp of the Plain of Virtues, she doubtless came to 
evangelize at his side in the halls of the Ely see. She had 



374 PARIS 

most probably passed through them on her first journey to 
Paris when she wrote the romance of her life and when 
M. Michaud was her shepherd, a shepherd in whom there 
was nothing pastoral but the name! Then the £lysee 
was the Hamlet of Chantilly : the scenes that occurred 
there were scarcely mystical, and ill-befitted the nature of 
Madame de Krudner, that seraph full of sins. And yet in 
1 8 15 she must have regretted the Hamlet of Chantilly and 
its pomps, for that was to regret her lost youth, the spring- 
tide evenings when she placed upon her blonde tresses 
those mauve garlands that only suited Valerie ! That was 
to regret the magic exercised not upon the mind of an 
emperor with the aid of a political Utopia, but worked by 
the aid of a pair of beautiful eyes upon the hearts of those 
courtiers of Beauty, M. Michaud and M. Alexander de 
Stackieff. O Elysee ! O shelter of all the decadences ! 
You had seen Madame de Pompadour sad, M. de Beaujon 
weary, and the Sparta of '93 turning to the Paphos of '98 : 
you had seen Napoleon vanquished ! It was left for you 
to see the despair of a romantic coquette who was growing 
old! 

Madame de Krudner did not long sigh the elegy of her 
fled youth in the chambers of the £lysee in which the 
emperor had wept over the lost throne of the universe. 
Alexander took the road for St. Petersburg, and the Elysee 
came into the hands of the Duke of Berry, not, however, 
without having been traversed for a few weeks by the 
cavalier steps of that Lovelace general. Sir Arthur Welles- 



THE ELYSEE 375 

ley, Duke of Wellington. Is it necessary to recall that 
the Duke of Berry paid his tribute to the evil fortunes of 
the place. In vain (and here it is M. de Chateaubriand 
that speaks) " Son of Saint-Louis, last scion of the ancient 
branch, he escaped from the crosses of a long exile and 
returned to his country ; he began to taste happiness, he 
flattered himself that he was beginning life ^new and at 
the same time seeing the monarchy born again in the in- 
fants that God promised j all at once he is struck in the 
midst of his hopes, almost in the arms of his w^ife ! The 
sinister drama of February 13th, 1820, that regicidal scene 
that came v^^ith so terrible a denouncement to close the joy- 
ous fairy scenes of a fashionable ballet, w^as played at the 
Opera; but it vi^as at the Elysee that the counter blow 
of Louvel's work sounded so heavily. From there the 
prince had set out full of life ; he returned thither a bleed- 
ing corpse for the despair of his Caroline and for the 
eternal grief of what was yet unborn. There, seven 
months after the fulfillment of this destiny, the Duke of 
Bordeaux came into the world, condemned in advance to 
that bitter chalice that all the sons of a king must empty 
in turn, and that night did not the little red man of the 
Elysee keep vigil, prophesying over that cradle the lugubri- 
ous oracles that he had doubtless cast over those infants 
sacred and stricken before this new arrival, — Louis de 
Bourbon, King of the Temple, and Napoleon II., King 
of Rome ? 

The Duchess of Berry did not leave this palace : she 



376 PARIS 

wished in accordance with the apostle that grace should 
abound where even fatality had abounded. Until 1830, 
Marie-Caroline in her Elysee was the true queen of 
the land of France, a daughter of Henri IV., she has been 
called, who, by her love of the arts, made herself a daughter 
of Francis I. If she went out of this retreat whither she 
attracted all the Muses, it was to go to the Salon, or the 
Opera, or the Gymnase to stimulate, with a tear or a smile, 
the fertile zeal of her favourite artists Horace Vernet, Rossini, 
or Scribe. . . . After these excursions in search of pic- 
tures, poems or operas destined to solace her regrets, she 
returned to her Elysee to give the signal for those fetes 
that were never conducted without romantic pomp or art ; 
the Avenue de Marigny glittered, carriages choked all the 
approaches, and within the mistress of the house with her 
doubly royal affability received the most refined society 
perhaps that could be brought together under princely aus- 
pices since the apotheses of the Roi-Soleil ! Alas ! in one 
of these tourneys of elegance in which Madame de Berry 
entertained Paris, she amused herself in wearing for a whole 
night the brilliant costume of Mary Stuart. She was to 
know to the very depths this role that had pleased her 
melancholy fancy. O illustrious captive of Blaye ! O 
Marie-Caroline-Ferdinand of Sicily, it is again your lawyer 
M. de Chateaubriand who I am going to ask for all your 
titles, widow of Berry, niece of the late Marie Antoinette 
of Austria, widow Capet. 

After 1830 the history of the Elysee halts for eighteen 



THE ELYSEE 377 

years J the building belongs to the civil list and let the 
civil list dispose of it as it will, it matters little to us who 
have been the masters of ceremony of all these famous 
hosts and adored hostesses. After the Comte d'£vreux, 
and Madame de Pompadour, and the financier Beaujon, 
and the Duchess of Bourbon, and the Goddess of Reason, 
and Murat, King of the Two Sicilies, and Napoleon King 
of the world, and Alexander of Russia, scourge of Na- 
poleon in the hands of Providence, and after the Duchess 
of Berry I do not care to paint silhouettes that are not 
faces. 

The revolution of 1848 opened the closed doors of the 
Elysee with a great noise. During the first dangers of 
February, the commission of patriotic grants held its sit- 
tings there ; then, when the will of the nation had called 
to power him who was to reconstitute the country or 
rather to create a new France, Prince Louis-Napoleon 
came to dwell in the Elysee and gain inspiration there from 
the counsels left throughout these eloquent walls by One 
who did not all die on May 5, 1821. In 1849, ^^^ dur- 
ing the two following years, the prince reanimated its 
sleeping echoes. The soirees of the £lysee were like a 
universal predestined country wherein those learned to 
judge and love each other who were to serve in every order 
of activity and thought the great designs of the emperor 
of peace. 



ARC DE TRIOMPHE AND CHAMPS 
ELYSEES 

EDOUJRD FOURNIER 

THERE is no city in the world that can boast of an 
entrance comparable for majesty and grandeur to 
that which Paris presents when we enter by the 
barriere de PEtoiie. No city ever announced herself better, 
nor promised so well at the outset what she would keep 
later on in variety of aspect, extent and animation of view 
and monumental splendour. The Jrc de Triomphe de la 
Grande-Arm'ee^ for that is its real name, is, doubtless, the 
grandest homage to martial glory. Thus considered, this 
monument is striking and imposing ; but, if one examines it 
from its proper point of view, that is to say as the entrance 
to Paris, and, forgive this entirely architectural word, as the 
frontispiece of the enormous city, we should perhaps have 
to admire it still more. 

What is strange is that this structure, which owes its 
most incontestable beauty to the unity of the whole and the 
learned art with which the proportions of the mass have 
been arranged, has suffered, during the long and varied 
phases of its construction, all the vicissitudes which should 
put confusion into its monumental disposition and substitute 
the most contrary defects for the merits that we recognize 
in it. Hesitation in adoption of the plans, disputes between 

378 



l 



M 



ARC DE TRIOMPHE 379 

the architects, (for they had at the outset the unhappy idea 
of nominating two, Raymond and Chalgrin, for this single 
structure) changes in the directorate, interruptions of the 
work, in a word, from the first of Frimaire Year VI., the 
date of the first project, until July 29, 1836, when it was 
inaugurated, no vicissitude was lacking. 

There were variations and hesitations even in the name, 
which augured ill for the rest. First in Year VI., when the 
first idea of a triumphal arch arose, it was to have been 
erected in memory of the victories gained by our soldiers 
beyond the Alps. It was planned to build it at the barriere 
d'ltalie. In 1806, according to a note dictated by the 
emperor, the monument was to be called the Arc de 
Marengo. Its site was then marked as the large space left 
empty by the demolition of the Bastille. The project was 
submitted to the Academie des Beaux Arts which only 
found fault with the spot selected. The emperor recog- 
nized the justice of the criticism and finally adopted the 
summit of the little mount that so happily dominates the 
great Avenue des Champs Elysees. 

Once the idea was adopted, the works began with ardour ; 
it could be seen that the emperor had given orders. Ray- 
mond and Chalgrin constantly disputed over the plan to be 
followed, but the master had spoken and the work was 
pushed without waiting for these gentlemen to agree. To 
put an end to the annoying discord, Raymond resigned and 
thus left the field free to Chalgrin whose plan (which has 
been almost entirely followed) was moreover far preferable 



380 PARIS 

to his own. Chalgrin was unhappy enough not to finish 
his work: he died January 20, 181 1. The building had 
only reached the cornice of the pedestal. As you see, 
ardour had soon cooled ; or rather let us say that money 
had soon failed. What was destined for the monument to 
old victories had been eaten up by new ones. M. Goust 
was no luckier than Chalgrin whom he succeeded. Defeats 
came and the triumphal arch suffered like the rest, more 
even. 

The Restoration left it alone for nine years. In 1823, 
the expedition to Spain and capture of the Trocadero sud- 
denly brought the government's thoughts back to this 
youthful ruin forgotten upon the heights of L'Etoile. 
The project was again taken up to be completed for the 
new iriumphator^ the Due d'Angouleme. A royal ordi- 
nance was given and an architect was named. This was 
M. Huyot, and the building, brusquely arrested at the birth 
of the great arch, was henceforth to proceed without inter- 
ruption. 

The Revolution of July altered the destination of the 
monument that was devoted to the glories of the Grand 
Army, but left M. Huyot in office. In July, 1833, he had 
carried the construction up to the great entablature and was 
laying the first stones of the attic when he was disgraced. 
M. Blouet succeeded him. To the latter fell the honour of 
completing this great work, which he did while remaining 
almost entirely faithful to the plans of his predecessor. 

In 1836, the Arc de Triomphe was finished. As a 



ARC DE TRIOMPHE 381 

whole, harmonious in proportions, it is an almost irre- 
proachable monument. With its colossal arch measuring 
twenty-eight metres in height and fourteen in breadth j with 
that long sequence of incrusted shields on its, attic, each 
bearing the name of a great victory ; that line of soldiers 
defiling around the frieze, giants that look like pygmies 
from the base ; those bas-reliefs that decorate each face, 
some of which are works of the first order, (such as that by 
Feucheres, who makes the Passage of the Bridge of Areola 
live again in stone ; that by Chaponnieres which makes us 
take part in the Capture of Alexandria), that harmoni- 
ous whole of glorious ornamentation is still heightened and 
increased by the four gigantic trophies placed upon the 
piers. Those facing the Avenue de Neuilly, Peace and 
Resistance, come from the vigorous hands of d'Etex ; and 
those fronting the Champs Elysees due, one, the Corona- 
tion of the Emperor, to the solemnly calm and academic 
talent of Cortot ; the other, the Departure, to the chisel of 
Rude, which never possessed more ardour, fire, nor energy. 
There are few nations that could have found in their 
treasuries the ten millions paid for this glorious jewel j and 
much fewer still that could have recruited among their 
artists sufficient talent for this great sculptural and architec- 
tural task ; but certainly there is not one that in a single 
page of its history could at the same time have found so 
many triumphs and those three hundred and eighty-six 
names of victorious generals that blaze upon those walls, as 
on the tables of the Temple of Glory. 



382 PARIS 

From the foot of the monument, when we turn our eves 
toward the city, the view is most magnificent. That wide 
rise with a gentle slope that the ever-delighted gaze de- 
scends to the level, circular space ; that \ast avenue that on 
starting thence spreads its wings and assumes the propor- 
tions of a leafy wood the verdure of which is almost con- 
founded with that of the trees of the Tuileries ; the Place 
de la Concorde that looks from afar like a broad and white 
clearing in broad sunlight between two neighbouring parks; 
in the background, the monumental line of the Tuileries 
buildings against which stands out in silhouette the obelisk 
that cuts without breaking it ; to complete this grand pic- 
ture, everywhere are houses, hotels and palaces ; and, to 
give animation to it, everywhere is movement, noise, lines 
of pedestrians, cavalcades and carriages going and coming 
in hundreds : the entire effect is truly prodigious. 

Louis XIV. comprehended that Paris, thus bounded, 
possessed majesty and grandeur, and in 1670 he thought of 
at last levelling this vast peristyle of verdure. By his 
orders, the marshes were extensively drained ; the Rue de 
Chaillot was sharply cut at the height which it has not 
since passed ; three fine alleys of elms were planted, and 
greenswards were laid down among the clumps. The 
roads that led to the Roule, the Faubourg Saint-Honore, 
and Chaillot, became so many fine avenues radiating from 
that circular space that we call the rond-point^ and which 
then came to be called the Place de VEtoile. Even in 1764 
the Champs-Elysees did not extend beyond the Rue de 



ARC DE TRIOMPHE 383 

Chaillot. Starting at the rond-point they already began to 
shrink into a single avenue. 

The Due d'Antin, superintendent of the royal buildings, 
had work done on the immense promenade. He occupied 
himself with making it healthy rather than beautiful. He 
also planted the avenue with trees, in memory of which he 
has been made its godfather. He also renewed the planta- 
tion of the Cours la Reine. Of all the roads, this was the 
one that had always been the most frequented. In 1628, 
Queen Marie de Medicis, who was very fond of this long 
walk, had had it planted with trees and closed at each end 
with an iron railing. All the fashionable world that owned 
carriages, the only people to whom this species of reserved 
park was open, thronged thither at certain hours. It was 
a vogue that lasted nearly two centuries, in fact until the 
Champs-£lysees, which at first were only called the Grand 
Cours to distinguish them from the other smaller one, had 
in their turn become the fashion. It had to wait till 1776 
before the public tired of its fancy and at last turned from 
the Petit into the Grand Cours. On September 17, in that 
year, the Memoires secrets decided to say a good word for 
the Champs-£lysees, which " are very fine and begin to 
attract the public." There they are now consecrated by 
the crowd, fashion is about to come and will not again de- 
sert them. Their revenge on the long vogue of Cours la 
Reine began then and still lasts. Under the Restoration, 
vain attempts were made to restore a little life to the latter 
by building a new quarter in its vicinity, in the midst of 



384 PARIS 

which was set like a stray pearl that marvellous Maison de 
Francois I. 

The alley close by was for a long time the most melan- 
choly of all the walks. Widows, whom ancient etiquette 
would not allow to show themselves in public during the 
period of their mourning, found only this spot in which to 
take a little air without letting themselves be seen. The 
name, All'ee des Veuves^ clung to it, and, deserted and soli- 
tary, it was long before it gave the lie to sadness. To-day 
the name is changed, the alley is called the Avenue Mon- 
taigne^ and its appearance has changed much more still. 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 

JRSENE HOUSSJTE 

THIS is a fairy tale, a mythological story ! What 
Undine has made these cascades spout ; for what 
Alcinous has Minerva planted the regular trees 
of these avenues ? 

In old days, before Queen Bertha, when Paris was only 
a straggling village, a mass of thatched roofs, ill reduced to 
order by barbarians, Paris clasped a belt of marshy forests 
around her walls built of mud and gravel. The belt has 
been gradually loosened, each epoch taking away a link, 
every king substituting a faubourg for a copse, a quarter for 
a growth of brushwood. Of the belt there remains now 
at most two fragments, embroidered anew by the curious 
zeal of modern caprice : I mean the Bois de Vincennes and 
the Bois de Boulogne. But who would imagine that in this 
Bois de Boulogne, frequented to-day by handsome couples 
and highly civilized beings, the sons of Chilperic and 
Theoderic passed, flourishing their frameas^ and keeping a 
sharp lookout for the nest of vipers in the high grasses ? 

At the beginning of the Eighth Century, Saint Cloud was 
still called Nogent, the forest was called the wood of Rou- 
veret, and the monks of Saint-Denis had the right of cut- 
ting wood from these high trees ; but not for the monks of 
that abbey was it reserved to transform Rouveret and to 

385 



386 PARIS 

leave an enduring trace upon it for the future. Boulogne- 
sur-Mer, that sanitarium for chlorotics and lovers, where 
now come to seek repose or death the sailors who have 
voyaged too long and the poets who want to listen to the 
ocean billows elsewhere than in Homer's hexameters, Bou- 
logne-sur-Mer beneath the first suns of the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury was growing proud through her Notre-Dame so wor- 
shipped and privileged on account of a hundred miracles. 
Therefore the pilgrims streamed toward the riparian city 
of the ocean. But for the devotees of all the religions a 
Jerusalem within reach is needed : Andromache in exile im- 
provises a diminutive Pergamos j the melancholiacs of fifty 
years ago built a cenotaph to Werther amid the labyrinths 
of their English gardens. And that is how the pious trav- 
ellers who returned from Boulogne-sur-Mer, envious to 
practice in Paris the rites learned in this somewhat remote 
sanctuary, asked King Philip V. to legalize the brotherhood 
of the Boulonnais and, with large supplies of doubloons 
and rose crowns, constructed a church in the thickest part 
of the wood of Rouveret, which, being felled and cleared, 
soon became a village, Boulogne-sur-Seine. 

Happily for future Paris, Rouveret, having changed 
its name and become the sacristy of the catechumens of 
Boulogne, at least preserved its trees, long-bearded like kings 
of the Prankish race, its trees of abundant sap to which it 
had owed its first name — (Robur — the Gallic oak). If the 
bishop of Paris, Foulques de Chanac, consecrated the altars 
of the virgin of Boulogne in 1363, Olivier le Dain had al- 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 387 

ready been set over the warren of Rouveret in those days 
then recent when king's barbers usurped over the persons 
of their sublime clients the authority first allotted to the 
monks and wandering knights of Notre-Dame. This wood 
of Boulogne, half cathedral, half warren, soon sheltered 
castles where indolent monarchs reposed after an hour of 
business or of the chase. Moreover, even before the kings, 
the ladies of the royal blood had formed there a retreat from 
the treasons of the court and the falsehoods of passion. 
Since Saint Radegonde who, in her cloister, shared her sweet- 
meats and her spiritual knowledge with the grammarian- 
poet Fortunat, our French princesses have had a taste for 
these semi-solitudes, peopled by God and his ministers. Ask 
the Abbesses of Fontevrault and Chelles, seek information 
from the Duchess of Longueville ! In this chronology of 
patrician Catholics, heroines of Very Christian France, the 
sister of Saint-Louis has recorded a date that relates to the 
splendours of our wood of Boulogne ; it was there, in fact, 
that Isabelle of France in 1209 rendered to the Lord her 
ecstatic and languishing soul in the friendly cells of that 
abbey of Longchamps, solong famous, so long placed under 
the invocations of crowned female sinners, so long dedicated 
to the leisure of repentant singers who to efface the profane 
impression of ariettas from Armide or Eurydice^ drew the 
whole of Paris to the chapel where they sighed the anthem 
of an eternal Gloria in excehis. 

Isabelle of France was the first to enfeoff the shadows of 
Boulogne in the private domain of the monarchy, using 



388 PARIS 

it as the secret refuge of her pathetic melancholy. But 
Madrid, Bagatelle, and La Muette remain a triple and 
splendid revenge of the kings who would not consent that 
their wood of Boulogne should be only the purgatory or 
even the paradise in anticipation of the mystic beauties of 
their families. 

Madrid ! At that name I already inhale the most in- 
toxicating perfumes of the flower of the Valois and Bourbons. 
?>ancis I. reentered his Paris after the misfortune of Pavia 
and the harsh ennui of a forced sojourn in Spain. The 
glorious freed captive wanted to give this name Madrid to 
a monument erected in honour of his reconquered liberty. 
Philibert Delorme took the square and trowel in hand, 
Bernard de Palissy had the most brilliant and solid enamels 
fired for the decoration of the fac^ade of the richest and 
most elegant castle of our French Renaissance. O perpetual 
ptes in that Chambord situated a few thousand steps from 
the Louvre ! Luxurious feasts, strange masquerades, bold 
and pedantic talk, frank repasts of Greek and Italian, duels 
of erudition and poetry, duels also of courteous braggarts 
nevertheless ! To write the journal of Madrid under Francis 
I., I should have to be either Rabelais or Michelet ! To as- 
sort these nuances^ to risk these contrasts, to paint and 
carve in relief this incomparable group, the over-robust 
Louisa of Savoy and the sickly, first of the Margots, and 
Madame Diana, and Anne de Pisseleu, and also the little 
Florentine who will be Catherine de Medicis, I should have 
need of the counsel of da Vinci and Jean Goujean, of 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 389 

Germain Pilon and Prematice ! Who then among the 
pasticheurs of these times would succeed in framing within 
this efflorescent architecture the romance of Henri 11. and 
the Countess of Poitiers, that lady who for so many years 
recommenced the education of a crowned Jehan de Saintre ? 
Who would venture to divine the thoughts of Charles II., 
that savage and gentle youth, an epileptic and a sayer of 
good things during the weeks when he retired to Madrid, 
thinking more of the piercing glances of Marie Touchet 
than of his mother's projects ; caring less about the preten- 
sions of Henry of Bourbon to the throne of France than he 
was moved by the marvellous rhymes of his rival in the 
art of versifying, Ronsard, the gentleman from Vendome ! 
What Lycophron, a searcher after assonances and onomat- 
opoeia, would dare to make the tigers and little dogs, in- 
stalled by Henri III. in his Madrid menagerie, roar, mew 
and yelp in his lines ? Lastly, who would venture to open 
the cabinet in which the second of the Margots, dowered 
with the Madrid by the munificence of her husband, Henri 
IV., first imbalmed the ever-dear memories of her first at- 
tachment, and later, full of shame, became enraged when 
the ignominy of a fatal divorce struck her ? It is Marguerite 
of Valois, it is that majesty of the Renaissance who ends 
the chronicles of the castle of Madrid. The Pompeii of 
the Valois, there was no further use for it when that val- 
orous, criminal, and charming race became extinct. In the 
middle of the Seventeenth Century, when Louis XIV. broke 
with all the traditions of the past and set royalty in Ver- 



390 PARIS 

sailles, weavers established their looms where ApoUos had 
hummed their little odes. A stocking-factory in the castle 
of Madrid ! Ah ! Ruin would have been better than such a 
changed estate ! That invisible and assiduous spirit that 
protects the fortresses of heroes and the villas of beautiful 
women deserted the outraged pavilions. The moss soon 
crept over these stones whose echoes now only repeated the 
monotonous sound of the shuttle. The Alcinas of Lucien 
and of Choisy-le-Roi did not think of defending against 
time and oblivion these walls, eloquent witnesses that glori- 
fied the Alcinas of the past. Louis XVI. arrived, an alto- 
gether provisional Adam of a terrestrial paradise of Gess- 
ner's style. Only on reading in his history of France ex- 
purgated ad usum delphinorum a few anecdotes touching the 
Madrid of Henri III., he would have crossed himself 
twice. Perhaps, when walking among thickets of the wood 
of Boulogne, he assisted at a Sabbat of the resuscitated, 
presided over by Margot or Diana. However that may be, 
one day he ordered his workmen to pull down Madrid and 
its adjoining buildings. I do not know why he stopped 
short of having potatoes sown there, for the greater profit 
, of morality. To-day Madrid has been rebuilt ; but alas ! 
they were not our Philippe Delormes who had charge 
of the work. The hasty and economical architects have 
finished their palace with plaster and white wood ! Now 
Madrid in the wine shop of the demi-monde and of the " quart 
de monde / " . . . So do not return to the earth, ex- 
tinct Valois, courtiers and mistresses of Valois now disap- 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 391 

peared ; these orgies at a fixed sum celebrated daily upon 
this tomb of splendours would frighten you more than the 
supreme accident of '93 frightened the last of the Bour- 
bons ! 

Neither Bagatelle nor La Muette can number so many 
periods in their history. Bagatelle, or, if you prefer, the 
Folic d'Artois, villa and villula begun and finished in sixty- 
four days, was the secret Tivoli of the handsome Charles^ 
Count of Artois^ when La Duthe and Mme. de Polastron 
answered his amorous dissertations, when the children of 
France had not yet studied in their geographical dictionary 
these articles of sinister interest : Hartwell, Ghent, Prague 
and Goritz ! The Revolution, that bacchante that was 
ever intoxicated, it mattered little with what wine, did with 
the Bagatelle as it did with the Elysee.and the Pavilion de 
Hanovre : the fiddles of a public ball executed their most 
excruciating tdnes there ; there people danced " a la grecque^^ 
and " a la romaine^" as erewhile they danced " a la 
Fran^aise " in the Rampannean garden ! When the Count 
of Artois reentered this theatre of his earliest follies, con- 
verted thenceforward and no longer thinking of Mme. de 
Polastron except to humiliate himself the more at the knees 
of Cardinal de Latil, was he not scared by the shades of 
the impure Giselles of the Directoire ? Even when he be- 
came king, he granted Bagatelle to his grandson, doubtless 
in order that this innocence of the Joash of the Bourbons 
should efface the trace of these impieties of the populace. 
The Duke of Bordeaux, in spring, came to this castle of 



392 PARIS 

Prince Charming, conducted by his smiling mother. And, 
if I wanted again to seek in this name Bagatelle a motive 
for too easy amplifications, I should have to begin again for 
the tenth time this elegy so often breathed in sighs: "The 
son and the mother ! " A tearful complaint, fortune de- 
stroyed, and exile ! Marie Louise and Napoleon II.! Marie- 
Caroline and the Duke of Bordeaux ! Valentine and 
Charles of Orleans ! — Ever, ever Andromache and the son 
of Hector ! 

At La Muette, the genius of the place is Philippe d'Or- 
leans, regent of France. The castle was embellished by 
the daughter of his adoration. It was at La Muette that 
the Duchess of Berry, careless of the bleeding epigrams of 
the youthful Voltaire, indifferent to the rage of her mother 
and the remonstrances of her grandmother, sported accord- 
ing to her own fancy and remained faithful to the wine of 
Burgundy even more than to Lauzun's nephew ! It was 
also at La Muette that she expired at twenty-seven years 
of age, violent and romantic even in the terrible agony that 
preceded her mysterious death. When Lauzun's nephew 
was informed that he had lost this guardian of his fortune 
and divinity of his heart, for all de profundis \\t restricted 
himself to humming an old song ending with this refrain 
of every human passion : " We mustn't say any more about 
it ! " Let us behave toward La Muette as M. de Riom 
did toward the Duchess of Berry. After 17 19 we must 
not say any more about it : its splendours are not distin- 
guished. Suppose Louis XV., Louis XVI. and Marie 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 393 

Antoinette have fixed their flying camps there ; suppose, on 
that lawn the second of the Montgolfiers has tried the road 
that leads to the stars ; suppose the nation has entertained 
the nation in those little apartments of royalty ; suppose the 
city of Paris has emptied the cellars of La Muette for the 
jovial fellows of the Federation who were so excited to be- 
come such fine soldiers ; suppose this domain, in dispute, 
taken and retaken, has belonged to the State or to the City, 
to private individuals or to the Crown, — truly, we must not 
say any more about it ! It is forever and for all the royal 
castles of France the monotonous story of the same pleas- 
ures, the same griefs, the same ingratitudes. The palaces are 
sceptical like ordinary men ; they accommodate themselves 
to all lodgers, they open their doors to all the mighty. Let 
us then pass quickly over the catastrophes of La Muette ; 
do not let us even seek to incriminate it on account of its 
last travesty. This castle in which the regent's daughter 
sinned for pleasure, is now a sanitarium ; nurses take the 
place of butlers. Why should we grow indignant over it 
since not a single tear has moistened the marble eyes of the 
Cupids in the groves ? 

Among so many decadences, in the wood of Boulogue, 
I know of only one glory that the years have spared : 
Ranelagh. For eighty years the violins have gathered un- 
der this common roof, in the momentary intimacy of the 
contradanse, the grasshoppers of Paris and the laborious 
ants of Passy. O Ranelagh, you are assured of existing 
as long as there is a little world and a bad world, as long 



394 PARIS 

as caprice awakes, even in hearts with names of thirty 
quarterings, an unexpected desire for risky steps and 
champagne drunk under the rose ! 

Let us return, and it is already ahnost too late, to the 
legend of the wood of Boulogue itself. Happily after the 
last V^alois, events are scarce in the life of the Parisian 
Tempe. Toward the close of the Sixteenth Century, 
the makers of pastorals (and at that time who did not oc- 
cupy himself with Lycidas or Pierrot ?) had reason for grief 
at the spectacle of the Bois de Boulogue invaded by a crowd 
of poor devils, deplorable victims of the civil war, starved, 
shivering with cold and attacking the great trees with the 
axe to warm their suffering limbs and to cheer their disconso- 
late and terror-stricken souls before great fires. Ah ! if he 
traversed that deadly forest, Ronsard must have felt, raising 
his eyes " ces larmes des choses" that made him sob in such 
admirable verses when he scourged the pitiless wood-cut- 
ters of Gastines ! 

In the Seventeenth Century under Louis XV., outside 
the luncheons of La Muette and Bagatelle, silence reigns 
as god of the wood of Boulogne. In the years during 
which Madrid fell into ruins, in the vicinity the withered 
oaks drooped their last branches over the sod strewn with 
dead leaves. For this epoch, that loved the pretty and the 
small in everything, the wood of Boulogne like Versailles 
was an embarrassment and a weariness. The Trianons or 
Bellevue, well and good ; there are sweet little parks that 
might be enclosed in the crystal box of a fay or a marquise. 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 395 

M. Dorat may sing of them without being taxed with 
Anglomania and without seeming to love Nature with the 
rabid bad taste of a Pennsylvanian labourer, or a Genevan 
philosopher. However, let us trust the great sovereigns to 
bring back the love of the grand in all things ! Napoleon 
appears at the moment when there is nothing but disaster 
and sorrow for France as well as for the wood of Boulogne, 
and the forest profits by this event almost as much as the 
nation itself. It is cleared ; trees are planted along the 
roads that lead to the favourite residence of the master, 
Saint-Cloud. Now the Bois de Boulogne will be the Hyde 
Park of Paris, as thronged with people and more suffocat- 
ing. Joyous cavalcades, melancholy pedestrians, quartettes 
of duellists and duets of lovers ; millionaires digesting a 
protracted dinner at Borel's and Bohemians supping on 
sunlight; dignitaries on their way to the sovereign's anti- 
chamber to request an additional dignity, and little girls 
gathering early daisies amid the coppice ; all who need to 
be absorbed in the intoxication of Nature or to seek repose 
in her maternal arms ; all who, tied by the foot by the cord 
of daily cares, have not the leisure to fly away to those 
radiant realms discovered by the golden divining-rod of the 
poets ; all who pretend to place themselves under favour- 
able conditions to evoke Rousseau's Clarens, Bernadin's 
Floride, and Chateaubriand's Louisiane; all those, finally, 
who take pleasure in the loungings of sedentary Paris, or 
who accommodate themselves to the vagabond aspirations of 
the Parisian cosmopolitan, are sure hahitues of this rendez- 



396 PARIS 

vous of the Bois de Boulogne. Even night does not dis- 
miss all the company, and, on the nights of an official ball, 
while the carriages of senators and marshals, gilded and 
rumbling, roll toward Saint-Cloud, the noise of the wheels 
often arouses from a sweet languor a youthful belated 
couple who, upon the classic banks of the lake of Auteuil, 
forgot the wisdom of Moliere and the rhymes of Boileau 
for the cavatinas of the nightingale in union with the sad 
and touching solos of the tree-frogs. 

Eternal contrasts ! Eternal coincidences ! This forest 
favoured and made new by Napoleon ; this forest, this oasis 
of the disposer of tempests ; this forest where the failing 
Millevoye had foreseen the fall of the leaves and sighed, 
when 1815 startled the world, was ravaged, pillaged, and 
devastated. There was situated the camp of the Ajaxes 
of the Don ; there by the light of aged lindens smoked the 
fuetid coppers of the gross eaters of the land of Attila. O 
devastated forest of Boulogne ! O stinking Walpurgis- 
night ! Shrill sabbat that weighs heavily upon this sylvan 
stage appropriated by choice to the harmonious nights of 
eclogue ! 

After 18 15 the trees grew again, the gaps were repaired : 
the wood no longer recalled the dreadful encampment of 
barbarians ; but the fortifications had narrowed its circuit ; 
and, as grandeur was still wanting in the Tuileries, no 
trouble was taken to give a fine appearance to the city or 
adornment to the forest. At length Napoleon III. brought 
back order into France's history and, fit appendix to the 



THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 397 

majesty of the new Paris, the Bois de Boulogne completed 
the series of its metamorphoses. From avatar to avatar, 
the forest has become a goddess. 

M. Hittorf and M. Vave were the Sylvain and the Pan 
of this Fontainebleau of our purlieus. What scenery and 
decorations ! Mountains, like the rams of the Scriptures, 
spring out of the flat soil of yesterday ; rivers and cascades 
spout forth and spread as soon as a bed has been cut to re- 
ceive them ; gondolas have lit their vari-coloured lanterns 
on the lake. Are we in Venice ? Are we in Nankin ? 
The wood is as capricious in details as the second Faust or 
the Black Forest. It is as regular as the private garden of 
a Grand Duke. The Avenue de I'Imperatrice is cut de 
chateaux a la minute^ the nest of our opulent doves ! It is 
the Baia of the Parisiennes. And thus, the Bois de 
Boulogne is going to help to reestablish in people's minds 
that necessary quality in the works of modern times, — joy. 
Werther will no longer dare to load his pistol there; 
Saverny and Didier would not have had the heart to draw 
there. But Diana of Poitiers would have loved there as 
she loved at Madrid; and Raphael's Phoebus would again 
descend on some silver midnight to inspire Desportes with 
a song or Millevoye with a romance. 



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